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Croydon (Phase 1 - Completed)

The following Well London activities took place in the Broad Green target area.

Themed Projects

Be Creative, Be Well

Croydon Fun Day Ugly Kids Club T – shirt design: A 'spray painting t-shirts' workshop.
Winston Philips and PINS: The transformation and update of the Handcroft Road Community Centre.
Music Project.

The success of the project exceeded expectations
Sue Orchard from Age UK Croydon

Eatwell

Community Feasts were delivered at the Love Croydon festival in 2008 and September 2009.

DIY Happiness

Eight DIY Happiness sessions. Dare to Dream ideas that were developed included:

T’ai Chi class.
Nutrition course.
Equipment for the Methodist church kitchen.

Mental Wellbeing impact assessment (MWIA)

An MWIA took place on the Handcroft Road Resource centre refurbishment project.

Changing Minds

Mental health awareness sessions took place on a variety of subjects including:

Ready Steady Croydon food and mood training.
Introduction to relaxation.
Asian Women’s Community Group, Tea and Talk.
BME Forum Tea and Talk with added relaxation.

Healthy Spaces

Ready Steady Croydon - Cook and Eat Sessions
Planting & Food Growing Workshops

Activate London

Derby Road Football Academy
Line Dancing
Healthy Walks

An interesting and varied project allowing me to try activities (e.g. belly dancing) I would never have imagined
Participant

Heart of the Community Projects

Training communities

This project provided training for the following Well London groups:

WLDT members
Well London Activators
MWIA facilitators
Young Ambassador

Training Communities also offered Personal support packages (PSPs). Examples of training people chose included the following:

Life coaching.
Apprenticeship skills.
Public speaking and social media.
Fundraising.
Event planning.
Electrical safety and plumbing.
ICT and bookkeeping.

Youth.com

Resource Centre refurbishment consultation.
Resourse Centre relaunch martial arts exhibition.
Football academy.

Participant Data

Total participants; 773

656 people reported an increase in healthier eating.
620 people reported increased access to affordable healthy food.
523 people reported an increase in levels of physical activity.
618 people reported that they felt more or much more positive.

Klein Roberts, Derby Road Football Academy

Klein Roberts is a 19-year old Croydon resident. Last year he became the borough’s Well London youth ambassador, an appointment that eventually led here, to Wandle Park in West Croydon on a damp Saturday morning.

Mr Roberts’ Derby Road football academy has been running in the park for five months. ‘Every young ambassador had to have a personal project, and I decided that the thing I love is football,’ he explains. ‘So I set this up – bought equipment, hired the coaches, spread the word.’ (Image 4)

There are around 10 young boys out training today. Mr Roberts expects numbers to pick up once his academy really gets going – he plans to put a team together and train twice a week. Having the academy here has been important for local young people, he believes, because opportunities to play football and to train in a structured way are few and far between on the local housing estates.

‘It’s brilliant for the kids round here – it gives them something to do. I live on the estate over the road – we’re not allowed to play ball games, we can’t cycle over certain parts, we’re not supposed to speak loudly… the restrictions are endless,’ he says. ‘What are kids supposed to do? They might get involved with bad stuff, start hanging out with the wrong people. This has given them an opportunity. They trust you and ask you stuff, and you build up a relationship.

‘One boy [who attends the academy] lives on the estate over there. He can’t play football because he gets told off, and because his parents can’t take him anywhere he told me this is the only chance he really has to play. So this is the only real football action he gets. And it’s more than just a kickaround, he enjoys it and he’s meeting new people.’
Well London has, he says, been ‘absolutely fantastic’. The academy still has enough funding to keep going for another four or five months, and Mr Roberts is hopeful of finding alternative sources keep his project going past the summer.

‘I believe football can teach kids life skills,’ he says. ‘We can include messages about healthy eating, drugs… and if they belong to a team or an academy they will come every week and keep learning.’
March 2011

For more details about the Derby Road Football Academy visit www.drfa.btck.co.uk, call 07796 796660 or email drfa@gmail.com

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