Going for Gold

Active Regen held their Going for Gold athletics event at Magna in Rotherham.

Active Regen (SY) Ltd is a social enterprise that utilises sport and physical activity as a regeneration mechanism in the areas of greatest need throughout the North of England - "It's a great medium to help young people achieve".

Encouraging people to take part in sport and physical activity has been recognised as an important way of engaging participants from deprived communities & to overcome certain social & economic issues faced by these communities - The company has been awarded the ' Inspire' Mark

Going for Gold is an athletics project connecting the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games with positive opportunities to increase physical activity for the young people of Rotherham.

Working with 20 schools across four different areas, this innovative programme organised and delivered by Active Regen, (SY) Ltd, is aimed at 1500 young people aged between 8 and 11 years. The first stage of the programme is around the Young Leaders Award (this is an accredited qualification through Sports Leaders UK).

After teaching the pupils how to use sports equipment properly, improve techniques and deliver a lesson, the young people themselves will deliver an athletic session to fellow pupils by teaching their peers techniques, rules and basic skills.

The second stage will involve 2 events, an athletic event and a celebration event. The athletics event will see involvement of between 180 -220 pupils from the participating schools.

Young people who have achieved the Young Leaders Award will be running the meeting by officiating, registering teams and individuals for events and will oversee the entire day. The major emphasis will be participation rather than winning as the project is all about empowering young people as well as encouraging them to part in physical activity.

Representatives from local sports clubs will be invited to attend the event so that they can identify raw talent for their own clubs, which in turn could lead to the development of future Olympic athletes.

At the celebration event, the young leaders will receive their accredited certificates for passing the Young Leaders Awards and will also have the opportunity to vote for the best young leader of the day. The winning young leader will receive a trip to South Africa where they will go on to coach young people in South Africa the principles of athletics.

Going for Gold's second stage athletic and celebration event took place at Magna on Tuesday 30^th March and the children taking part (aged between 8 and 11 years) certainly did themselves and their schools proud!

Pupils from 3 local primary schools participated in 10 running, jumping and throwing events including the javelin, sergeant jump and a relay race. Young leaders not only helped organise and officiate the event on the day, they also helped coach their fellow schools mates on the skill and techniques required for each event.

In the spirit of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, each school team adopted a country to represent and the children made their own flags and head bands to celebrate their adopted country. All the children clearly had a great time taking part and cheering their team mates on to their personal bests!

At the end of the competition the points were added up and the winning school was announced at the celebration event later that afternoon. The winner of each event was awarded with a certificate and special recognition went to 10 young leaders voted by their peers as the 2 best leaders from their respective schools. The nominated young leaders were presented with a voucher and the much coveted Inspire pin badge mark their achievement!

James Tabberer, London 2012 Yorkshire Inspire Programmer said - "It really was inspiring to see so many children from different schools coming together to try out new sports, competing fairly with each other and having fun and making friends in the process"