CASE STUDY: STREET LEAGUES

Street Leagues is a nationwide charity which works with 16-25 year olds not in education, employment or training.It seeks to harness the power of sport to help these young people improve themselves and during their eight week placement with the project seeks to help them with CVs, interview and life skills.It also focuses on what employers expect from staff. Typically groups can range in numbers from 8 -14.

In late 2012 Nil by Mouth ran pilot session with Street League groups in Lanarkshire to gauge the need for anti-sectarian inputs with this demographic as they prepared for work. It became clear particularly with causal use of sectarian language and the content of social media profiles that there were issues which needed addressing.

Nil by Mouth and Street Leagues team up across Scotland to help young people understand their rights and responsibilities in the workplace

Street Leagues have proved to be excellent partners and have recognised and embraced the need for anti-sectarian inputs into their eight week programmes across Scotland. We also work with its coaches and course leaders to ensure they feel confident with the subject matter for follow up work if required. With renewed funding from the Scottish Government in September 2013 NbM rolled out ‘employability sessions’ to Street League cohorts in Ravenscraig, Cumbernauld, Parkhead, Shawlands, Inverclyde, Hamilton, Blantyre, Linwood, Airdrie and East Kilbride.

This results in NbM working with several cohorts in each area during a calendar year and following on from the BRB input Street League staff run a review session to discuss any issues raised and evaluate what was learned.

Through this partnership we have embedded and promoted anti-sectarian messages and values into a traditionally very hard to reach demographic making sure they are left in no doubt about their rights and responsibilities as they enter the workplace.

'The group was made aware of ways in which sectarianism in the workplace can affect them and how their use of social media can affect their chances of employment'

Scott, Course Leader, Linwood Street Leagues

'Nil by Mouth provided a very good training session and ensured that all participants were fully engaged and could get involved. They were particularly engaged with the social media aspect'

Course leader, Glasgow Group