John Olyott

yeah so we're a youth and community centre hub in the heart of Toxteth just on Upper Warwick Street and we support young people mainly from the ages of 8 to 18 we have a junior offer which is 8 to 11 and then a senior offer which is 11 to 18 and basically we just give the young people the best opportunity we can get them off the streets get them inside playing sports or a creative offer or even a chill zone offer we've just got

a nice zone where they can all play games and hang out but it's just about giving these young people an opportunity to meet new people try new sports and see what see what they're about like see if it sparks an interest something that they can take into life with them kind of thing yeah get them off the streets so in terms of

Not at all.

Some people have that preconceived idea that we're only for LA kids, but we're not, we're for everybody.

And I touched on it then as we offer such a wide range of sports and it's mainly just to try and give these young people a chance to try sports they may never have a chance to try.

And then if they like it, be able to pursue that and push it forward.

But it's also a nice place, safe space more than anything.

It's both providing somewhere safe where they can come, relax and get to meet new young people and feel protected while they're enjoying sports and stuff like that, yeah.

a sports offer and then the chill zone offer but then around that as you say we've already got other programs running so we run like esol classes to help like young people who are struggling with english we can help them homework club so if young people are struggling with homework at home and don't really have that support at home or maybe the parents are struggling with that side of things they can come in sit with us and we'll help them go through that as well and then also we link in with other providers as well such as like the lfc foundation everton the community and we also have talks to felicia we're a local basketball

team all concurrent by the way like these basketball teams like they're doing bits they were undefeated until literally this year they lost in the semi-final yeah um but they're amazing yeah and the atmosphere in the building as you said you've been in you've seen it we're all about just creating that good atmosphere where they can come and have a laugh and not have to worry about things i i constantly tell the young people i'm not a sir i'm john

Do you know what I mean?

Because they do, they sometimes come in because the centre is so big and busy.

They get a little bit confused thinking it's a school sometimes and we're not a school at all.

We're there to just try and help them in their own time.

It's their decision.

They can come and go as they please.

We keep the memberships low price and keep hot food for them.

Every time they come in, they can access a hot meal for free once they've paid their yearly membership.

And then we have a gym there on site where they can come and access the gym.

i touched on it recently just before sorry about it's about getting good habits in these kids early so when they do come to 18 they leave school and stuff hopefully they carry on these things you know like boxer size classes just getting in the gym regularly football but as you say the creative side stuff as well so recently we've are opening a media arts room where kids can come in and play around with podcasting