RELAYS - seeking to engage young people

Posted by Leanne Dingle on 7th February 2010

The RELAYS (Regional Educational Legacy for Arts and Youth Sport) project seeks to engage young people in the South West in sporting and cultural events in the run up to London 2012.

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Led by Universities South West through a network of regional universities and cultural organisations, RELAYS aims to blend youth sport and cultural in a vibrant mixture of activities across the region in the build up to the Games.

RELAYS is funded by Legacy Trust UK, an independent charity that has been set up to help build a lasting cultural and sporting legacy from the 2012 Olympic Games and The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Now 18 months since its inception RELAYS has already run an exciting array of festivals, events and activities and is looking forward to even more in 2010. In the next few months the south west can expect to see a variety RELAYS events all designed to get young people and communities in the south west looking forward with anticipation to the 2012 games.

Activities in the next few months include a circus skills convention ‘Bath Upchuck’ in February, RELAYS events at the Bath Literary Festival and the Re:Bourne Cultural Festival in Bournemouth in March.

For the second year running the project will also be supporting the Bristol Festival of Sport and Culture - the first university-led event to be given the Inspire Mark in 2009.

RELAYS also aims to promote 2012 opportunities within the south west business community and, in March, will be working alongside other partners to deliver the Towards 2012 Forum - a business networking and information forum in the Bristol area.

After the notable successes in 2009, RELAYS will continue to support the ongoing community hub clubs and school engagement projects in 2010 run in partnership with the University of Bath, University of Gloucestershire and University College Plymouth St Mark and St John.

The projects are varied and aim to give school aged children from local communities the opportunity to try a mixture of sports, learn to be young leaders and generally benefit from the vast resources which universities have to offer.

These ongoing projects will engage with children from all walks of life to inspire them to try new things, improve their confidence and generally promote healthy living within local communities.

Leanne Dingle is Project Director for RELAYS.