20 2GM Wednesday December 2 2020 | the times
News
have got someone to go to that will help
me progress in life on a ‘legit’ path... It
means I don’t have to go to the negative
sources of income.”
Another success story is JoJo, 21, who
joined a 3Pillars fitness programme inFeltham young offender institution,
west London, and began training as a
sports coach on day release. With a
grin, he clenches his fists and adopts a
boxer’s sparring pose.
After he finished his sentenceA notice advertising a rugby session
changed Leon’s life. It was fixed to a wall
at Wormwood Scrubs prison in west
London, where he was being held on
remand.
Leon, who was on cleaning duty at
the time, signed up immediately. He
had tried rugby before but really he just
wanted a break from the monotony of
his cell. The experience proved trans-
formative.
“It wasn’t just rugby,” he says.
“We learnt the skills, the funda-
mentals of rugby, but after the ses-
sion we had half an hour in a circle,
sitting in a group, and basically
discussed our future, the steps to
take to get to our goals and gave
each other ideas.”
Leon is all too familiar with pris-
on. He was acquitted of the charge
that led to his detention in the
Scrubs, but has spent another spell
in jail and in a young offender insti-
tution. But he never forgot his
rugby session with the 3Pillars
Project, whose staff wrote to him
Greg Hurst Social Affairs Editor
‘It’s not just rugby... we
learnt how to be legit’
while he was inside. The group, which
holds its sessions in prison yards, was
founded on the premise that being
taught the physical discipline and ethos
of rugby can help vulnerable young
men to learn vital new skills, helping
them to escape the criminal justice
system and fulfil their potential. Men-
tors then help them to find housing,
training or work so they are able to get
their lives on track.
3Pillars is a prime example of the
2,600 youth groups around the UK
supported by the Sported charity, one
of the charities selected for The Times
and The Sunday Times Christmas
Appeal this year.
Sported provides vital free assistance
in the form of training, professional
support and fund-ing to community groups who use
grassroots sport, from rugby, angling
and hiking to karting, dance and
boxing, to engage disadvantaged young
people and help them to transform
their lives.
More than 480,000 young people
attend groups kept afloat by Sported. A
quarter of the charity’s members
survive on less than £5,000 a year in
funding, while more than half are led by
volunteers.
On Leon’s release from jail he made
his way to the 3Pillars base in Vauxhall,
south London, and enrolled on its
sports-based mentoring programme.
He exchanges elbow bumps with an
engaging smile and is reluctant to
discuss his offences but says the charity
set him on a new path. His aspira-
tion, which he rarely shared with
others, was to work with young
people with behavioural difficulties.
“I used to have behaviour difficul-
ties when I was a kid so I can
empathise,” he explains softly. This
led him to his first job in a primary
school, though he lost that when he
was first sent to prison at the age of- He is now 32 and has found a job
mentoring young people at risk
from gangs and county lines drug
dealing.
“It made me feel good, accom-
plished, it makes me feel like I can
start again,” he says. “Knowing I
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stLeon says that the
3Pillars Project set
him on a new path
and he now works
on a sports-based
mentoring team,
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