Archive for category: Education

A group of young NCS Changemakers with Yorkshire Cricket Foundation (YCF) are calling for cricket clubs across the Yorkshire region to embrace a new cricket kit recycling scheme, as part of the ‘Together for Sport’ initiative along with Zero Waste Leeds.

The scheme involves donating, reusing and recycling cricket kit, to help support accessibility within the game as well as improving local environmental sustainability.

The call to action follows a successful star studded ‘Cric-Kit’ launch by the two organisations in Leeds, last month. More than 350 people from the local community attended the special event, including 50 Yorkshire Cricket College Changemakers as part of YCF’s NCS programme.

The Cric-Kit scheme aims to create awareness and a culture across Yorkshire and the UK where donating, recycling and reusing sports clothing becomes a common place, to help break down barriers in community participation.

The young people at the launch event were also joined by Northern Diamond superstars Beth Langston and Steere Kalis.

Beth Langston commented:

“It’s a really good initiative – getting people from the local community down, maybe some that haven’t been involved in cricket before if the cost of the sport has been a barrier before.

“Especially nowadays with the cost of living crisis, that might put people off if they’ve not got much disposable income, but here was the opportunity to come down, grab some kit for free and then hopefully that will get more people involved in playing cricket or some other sports.

“Getting young people and adults involved in sport is really important for their health, their mental health and sport offers so much more including creating a community.”

Cricket kit can cost hundreds of pounds each year and as the cost-of-living crisis continues to increase, the option of getting some cricket kit for free means that money can be spent elsewhere for families.

Kendal James, Participation Manager for YCF, and founder of the initiative, said:

“As part of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation within Participation, our job is to try to break down barriers and one of the biggest barriers we know in cricket is in fact the equipment.

“And added on top of this, given the current climate with inflation and how expensive things are, we wanted to rally round and find as many opportunities to showcase that we can reuse, recycle and donate kit to those in need.”

The Cric-Kit scheme also looks to have a major impact on helping the environment, as high plastic content can often be found in cricket equipment and garments, leading to damaging results for the environment, once old equipment is thrown away.

Following the successful launch, a new ‘Cric-Kit’ hub will be launched at Headingley Stadium, where spare cricket kit can be donated and reused across a number of community programmes run by YCF in Leeds.

The Foundation is also calling for cricket clubs across Yorkshire to help reduce waste, save money and breakdown barriers by joining the Cric-Kit scheme. YCF are aiming to select a handful of proactive clubs across the region who have expressed an interest in becoming a ‘Cric-Kit Hub’ early next year.

Kendal from YCF reiterates:

 “We are asking cricket clubs to be a flagship for Cric-Kit and encourage members of the club to donate any unused recycled kit, and also create awareness locally that if people have any unused kit, they are welcoming donations that future members who join the club can access if they need to.”

A group of young teens from Barnsley recently set out on a project with the aim of spreading mental health awareness as well as doing their bit to help out the environment.

The project, named, ‘Roots of You’ was part of their NCS experience with Reds in the Community over the summer. NCS is a 2-week experience, where young people meet new people, take on exciting challenges and complete a social action project, allowing them to impact their local community.

The group were undecided on two passionate topics, raising awareness on mental health or helping the environment. After some planning, the group decided to merge the two areas into one project.

Abi Grant was involved in the ‘Roots of You’ project and commented:

“We chose the project because we felt that mental health is such a huge part of our lives as teenagers, and we understand that people are often scared to share their issues, so having by creating an anonymous way to help people let go was really important to us.”

With the green light given, the group came up with the idea of holding special booths in Barnsley town centre, using their innovative idea to combine both topic areas.

In the booths, members of the public were encouraged to write any stories or ongoing worries involving their mental health on special plant-seeded paper. The young people then planted the seed-paper at Deansgate Care Home, using planters that they had built and painted.

Abi commented:

“We got so many responses from people our age saying how much better they felt after sharing, and how the idea of growing something negative into something beautiful  through the seeds planting, gave them a huge amount of comfort. I was so glad I was able to help.”

“Some of the admissions we got were quite heavy, but that was honestly the most amazing part, as people felt ready to let go of those feelings and allow us to create something meaningful out of it. I felt so privileged to have been able to help people around me in such a big way.”

As well as planting new seeds, the young people also supported the overall renovation of Deansgate Care Home to make it a much nicer space for the residents to enjoy.

Not stopping there, the group decided to use their techy-savvy expertise by creating a Google Document and a TikTok page, encouraging further members of the public to get in touch with them and spread their stories. The group found it be a popular choice for anonymous people wanting to share their own experiences.

Leonie Hudson, NCS Coordinator at Reds in the Community had the following to say:

“The group picked this project because members in the group had varying experiences with local mental health services, and they universally agreed that sometimes just telling your story can lift a weight off people’s shoulders. They were incredibly passionate about this idea and they hoped that it would allow people to tell their truths without fear of judgement.”

“The impact was two-fold, the group allowed the community to vent, knowing their stories would be planted and eventually bloom. But they also had a real impact on the residents of Deansgate Care Home, who  now have a lovely garden area to relax in.”

Click here to read about how more young people on NCS have been transforming themselves and their communities.