Football, they say, is the world’s game. So it should come as no surprise that it has formed a key part of the London Borough of Greenwich’s Prevent Programme. This case study forms part of our counter extremism resource.
Greenwich has been working on this issue since 2012 and has used football as a medium to reach out to the local community. The project resulted in participants playing a friendly match against soldiers from Woolwich barracks where Lee Rigby was based when he was murdered. The council has also developed an interactive DVD for school children which is being rolled out nationally.
Football, they say, is the world’s game. So it should come as no surprise that it has formed a key part of the London Borough of Greenwich’s Prevent Programme.
The council worked with a local mosque to run twice-weekly football sessions from 2012 to 2014. One was held mid-week and the other at the weekend giving local teenagers the chance to play in five-a-side matches. Each session attracted between 30 and 50 teenagers and were combined, at times, with guest speakers.
These included local Imams, senior police officers and local councillors. There were also sessions on men’s health, stopping smoking and youth employment.
Greenwich Prevent Coordinator Adam Browne says: “We wanted to mix it up a little. We didn’t want to have someone telling the young people what to do every time. That would not have worked. Therefore, we just arranged the guests to come two or three times a month.
“We also felt it was important to invite a wide range of speakers. The health and job centre ones were just as much a part of the Prevent agenda as the others. It is all about getting people involved in the community and engaged with services and not wandering the streets.”
But a sign of how successful the scheme was can also be seen by the fact that towards the end of last year a friendly match was organised against soldiers at Woolwich Barracks. This was, of course, the base that Lee Rigby was at when he was murdered.
But the football project is just one part of Greenwich’s long-standing Prevent work. It has had a Home Office-funded Prevent coordinator within the Safer Communities Team since 2012, while a Channel Panel has been in operation since 2011. Alongside the football project, Greenwich has also run a scheme targeted at women.
An engagement officer was taken on in 2012 to reach out to the large Somali community. They worked for two years in the community and started off offering language and translation support, but as they won the trust of local women they encouraged them to take part in community activities such as fitness clubs and parenting groups. They also helped residents use and register with local services such as GPs and libraries.
“It was about building trust and creating a bridge to the community,” says Mr Browne. “Because of language barriers and wider cultural reasons women can sometimes find it difficult to get involved in the local community. The engagement officer broke down those barriers and they became so trusted that mothers would come to her to say they were worried about their children or that a child had gone to Syria. They would not tell that to the police or just any member of the council and while the post is no longer funded that legacy has lasted and I get people coming to me now.”
This strong track record meant Greenwich was already largely fulfilling the statutory duties introduced by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.
However, over the past year there has been a focus on expanding the work the programme does with schools and voluntary agencies. The council has produced an interactive DVD called ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, for secondary school children. It is a film of two young men who are at risk of getting drawn into far-right and Islamic extremism. At various points during the film it is paused and the audience is given the option of making choices for the two men which then leads the film to play out in a particular way.
The film was due to be launched in schools this year, but that was delayed after the Home Office was so impressed with it that they wanted it to be offered nationally. Greenwich is now in the process of piloting it in some schools, with the feedback so far being extremely positive.
Alongside this, Greenwich has recently launched two workshop projects. The first, Families Matter, is delivered by the voluntary sector group Families Against Stress and Trauma, which explores the dangers associated with travelling to conflict zones.
It is run by women who have experience of going there and they are in the process of delivering six sessions at community centres and mosques.
Meanwhile, an interactive drama workshop called ‘Shadow Games’ is being delivered by the Second Wave Youth Arts Group in youth clubs exploring the issues about risks of radicalisation.
Matthew Norwell, the council’s Director of Community Safety and Environment, says using different methods like these is essential.
“We’ve shown that one of the keys to having a successful Prevent programme in such a diverse, fast-changing, dynamic place is to have a wide range of varied activities. “The challenge in the future will be to continue to do that at a time of drasticallyreduced funding.”
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