Suchsimita Majumdar, Research & Policy Officer, ESDEG
ESDEG was founded in 2005 by the members of the Somali refugee community to help their children bridge the attainment gap in schools. For the last two decades ESDEG has continued with this programme which has benefitted hundreds of children from the local communities in West London. “It is through these after school homework clubs that the ESDEG staff realised that ethnic minority children and young people (YP) often struggle in the English education system fighting stereotyping, unconscious racial bias, institutional racism, school exclusions, bullying, violence etc. These youngsters are the classic example of intersectionality where race, class, gender, special needs, disability and mental health needs intersect with one another and overlap. Multiple odds are stacked against them including poverty, overcrowding in council housing, lack of positive role models in the family especially in single parent households, gang affiliations, peer pressure and crime. For children with special needs the situation is much worse. Apart from help with their academics, the YP needed additional support in other areas of their lives as well.” – Mentoring the Youth from Low Income Households in West London. So in 2016 ESDEG launched our Mentoring Programme through which we reached out to the local schools and formed mentoring partnerships with them.
Over the years ESDEG’s activities have expanded to meet the needs of the community we serve, so has our service user base. Currently we work with ethnic minorities or global majority from refugee/asylum seeker/migrant backgrounds and low-income households. But our core value of helping children from vulnerable backgrounds strive for a better future has remained constant.
So, when Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in collaboration with Young Ealing Foundation launched a new project Stronger Futures Programme to support vulnerable 8-to-18-year-old Londoners in underserved areas of Ealing by providing them with opportunities and support in the post-school hours as well as over the weekends, it was a perfect fit for ESDEG in terms of expertise, experience and core value matching.
From our experience at ESDEG we know that supervised after-school activities have multiple developmental benefits for children and young adults. Depending on the nature of the activity it teaches young people new skills; new soft skills like working in teams or partnerships, collaborating, leading, making new friends, being punctual; it helps to keep them safe, and away from drugs, gangs and violence; improves their physical and mental health; provides a safe space while parents are still at work; helps in breaking down isolation; provides a respite from overcrowded homes in inner London boroughs; an opportunity to pursue their passions; helps them to build up a social network; and last but not the least reduces screen time. So we are delighted to add further after-school activities to our list. These sports sessions are free to join. If you always wanted to try, but never had the opportunity why not come to one of our sessions and give it a try? Please contact our Learning Mentor Iman Hassan who runs this programme at iman@esdeg.org.uk.
Going back to the Stronger Futures Programme, according to the VRU Information Document “The project will provide academic support to help children and young people improve their school attainment in core subjects of Maths and English, mentoring to inspire and boost their confidence and self-steam, physical activities to improve their social and mental well-being. We will also provide workshops, educational visits to universities and museums and opportunities to meet and engage with role models to inspire young people to go to higher education and pursue well paid career. Our aim is to break the poverty cycle so that children we working with today can bring about change in their communities.”
Under this project ESDEG is expected to provide sports, trips, workshops, education support, and mentoring.
In this blog post we will be highlighting the sports sessions we have been conducting over the last six months.
Currently we are running the following sports sessions
| Day | Sport | Gender | Time | Location |
| Monday | Football | Girls | 6-7 p.m. | Featherstone Sports Centre Astro |
| Monday | Football | Boys | 7-8 p.m. | Featherstone Sports Centre Astro |
| Monday | Handball | Girls | 3.15-4.15 p.m. | Viking Primary School |
| Tuesday | Handball | Girls | 3.15-4.15 p.m. | Villiers High School |
According to our Learning Mentor Iman Hassan “We’ve had fantastic response to the sports sessions. Kids are turning up on their own, participating in the games and engaging with us and the other kids.” Iman goes on to add “During the winter months I was a little worried about the participation rate, but I need not have worried. Most of our sessions are going full.”
Sharing some feedback from our service users about the sports sessions. #StrongerFutures #SustainableFuturesPartnership #YoungEaling #CommunityEngagement #Ealing #Northolt #London #LondonYouth #Afterschoolclub
