"Driven 4 Life"

The Communities First Programme exists to provide local people with opportunities to play an active role in shaping the future of their community. Communities First provides opportunities for people living in disadvantaged areas, and the agencies that deliver services in those communities, to examine the realities of poverty and to learn and work together to address it. Communities First is about people challenging the barriers, whether they be real or perceived, which prevent residents from fulfilling their own potential and from effecting change where they live. It is about supporting communities, groups and individuals to find their voices and use their skills and experience to change, challenge, negotiate, persuade and jointly plan for the benefit of all members of these communities.

West Monmouthshire Golf Club has been working in Partnership with Ebbw Fawr Communities First team to set up a Golf project called “Driven 4 Life”. The project was set up to provide young people within the Blaenau Gwent area the opportunity to participate in Golf in a fun, safe and controlled environment. The initial group Communities First have worked with are the Blaenau Gwent sorted project, a project that supports young people at risk of exclusion. Other groups that are interested in getting involved are the Youth offending team, ISSP, Gofal Cymru, and Youth groups throughout the valley. The West Monmouthshire Club felt that they could offer a facility whereby the group could use the club facilities to begin to develop a sense of purpose and understanding through the medium of golf. The aim is to use Golf as the tool to help develop and mould these young people to become role models and key members within their communities. The course is primarily a practical one however at the start of each session there is a small amount of theory which has been linked into the National curriculum.

During the course of the project there has been a significant improvement in the young peoples behaviour and attitudes and there is now very little negative behaviour during the sessions. The young people have now developed a sense that they belong to something worthwhile, some of them for the first time in their lives.