StreetGames has teamed up with British tennis to launch six new pop-up tennis clubs in Leeds, as part of a pilot scheme aimed at 14-25 year olds from the city.
The six clubs will be running sixty sessions over the next four months, engaging around 150 young adults from some of the most disadvantaged communities in the Yorkshire city, encouraging them to pick up a racket and have some fun.
Volunteers from local clubs attended a recent Tennis Activator Training course held at The Beck, a regeneration charity working with neighbourhoods and communities across Leeds, and each are now committed to run 10 weekly sessions over the next four months.
Sam Leigh from Nigeria Community Leeds said, "Most of the activities that we currently run involve football. But having attended the Tennis Activator course and seen how tennis can be taken to anyone in any place we are looking forward to giving the children another sport and we know they will enjoy the tennis sessions whether developing tricks, skills or playing the fun games.
"It was a lot of fun for us and we know it will be a lot of fun for them and we are now looking forward to getting the project started."
Amy Latimer from Leeds YMCA added, "I had the impression that tennis was difficult and hard to access, but having played it with small racquets over barrier tape and in a disused car park it was not like I imagined. The session was amazing, sociable, competitive and great fun and everyone could take part easily."
Over the last 18 months the LTA, Tennis Foundation and Leeds City Council have been working with local partners to increase tennis participation in the city and StreetGames UK are the latest partners to become part of the plan.
For more information please contact Matt Fisher, StreetGames Network Coordinator in Yorkshire and Humber here: matt@thinkact.co.uk.
Find out more about StreetGames here.
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