On Saturday, July 15 the Newport Partnership travelled to the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham for the Levelling the Playing Field National Award ceremony. The Newport Partnership was honoured and thrilled to be announced as the Levelling the Playing Field ‘Partnership of the Year’ for the second year in a row, with Levelling the Playing Field (LtPF) deeming their efforts as “incomparable”.
The group nominations for the three national awards included:
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Partnership of the Year – Newport
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Role Model of the Year - Reggie Al-Haddi, NYCA
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Organisation of the Year - The GAP
Joe Thompson, Head of Funding from The London Marathon Foundation opened the event with inspirational insight and words of wisdom for all the young people in attendance. Inspiring figures and special guests from across the UK were also in attendance, including The Mayor of Birmingham, Cllr Chaman Lal, England's Commonwealth Games winning Netball captain, Ama Agbeze. Chair of the Youth Justice Board, Keith Fraser addressed all projects at the awards highlighting their achievements. The Newport Partnership was immensely proud and honoured to be nominated amongst so many other inspirational figures and projects from the UK regions.
The Newport multi-agency partnership approach began in 2020 as a response to the introduction of the Levelling the Playing Field initiative. The aim of the initiative is to use the power of sport and physical activity to engage and improve health and life outcomes for ethnically diverse children who are more likely to enter or are already involved with the Criminal Justice System.
Newport Live’s Community Sport and Wellbeing, Positive Futures team were asked to fulfil the strategic partnership role for Gwent. In particular, Newport because of its significant diverse demographic and data along with “Sport for Good Values” that are associated with Positive Futures. Working alongside Maindee Primary School, Newport Yemeni Community Association (NYCA), Community Youth Project (CYP), the GAP Wales Sanctuary Project, Newport City Council Youth Justice and Youth and Play Services, significant strides have been achieved in using the power of sport and the approaches of youth work to provide positive outcomes for young people. The network of trusted organisations has enabled young people throughout Newport to get involved in activities, delivered in safe places, with safe trusted faces to help the longer-term aim of reducing overrepresentation in the Youth Justice System
Prior to the national awards, the Newport Partnership held a Newport Takeover event in early June 2023 to celebrate the successes of young people and the joining of organisations for a common purpose.
Thirteen young people from Newport were selected to attend the awards event because of their commitment and engagement in the projects. All who attended were a credit to both Newport and the organisations that they represented and all received a recognition award at the event. After the awards ceremony, the young people engaged in fun activities including sports such as Kabaddi, track, field events and the blaze pods.
Lucy Donovan, Positive Futures Development Manager, Newport Live said “As a partnership, we have all worked so hard over the last few years to ensure we are providing resources and projects in our most diverse communities where young people and families need safe places to take part in activities and interact with consistent teams and safe faces, who welcome them into provision. We cannot achieve the best outcomes for young people working in silos and will continue the Levelling the Playing Field legacy for years to come within the Newport partnership”.
Karl Reed, Head of Community Sport and Wellbeing, Newport Live added, “We have committed time and resources over the last few years, as the strategic partner within the Levelling the Playing Field initiative locally here in Newport and Gwent. Diversity, equality and inclusion are priorities for us at Newport Live, embedded through our vision and values. We are thrilled the Newport collaboration has been given the recognition it deserves and we will continue to ensure fair and equitable offers are provided for all our communities”.
