Smallbridge Youth Club cycling to success

Steve Durham (centre) and Chief Inspector Nadeem Mir with Smallbridge Youth Club members

Young people from Smallbridge Youth Club have been pursuing their interests in bikes after they helped to conduct the Tour de Pennines event earlier this year.

The young people involved attend weekly sessions at Smallbridge Library and recently took part in a sculpturing arts project in partnership with the Co-Op to mark their centenary year. The sculpture was made from parts of old bicycles and is due to go on display in the near future.

The youth club which is part of the provisions offered by Rochdale Youth Service approached Greater Manchester Police for support in expanding their project to its next phase.

Chief Inspector Nadeem Mir said: “When I was approached by Zaf from the youth service to help, I asked him what he needed. He told me how he had been working with a number of young people who wanted to improve their skills and put something back into their community.

“Too often our young people get a bad press in relation to hanging around the streets creating a nuisance. Keeping people safe and reducing anti-social behaviour is a key priority of the partnership. Providing a number of bikes from our property store was a small gesture of encouragement that will assist in developing our young people to take pride in learning new skills such as bike maintenance and becoming active citizens within their community.”

The contribution from Greater Manchester Police has enabled the young people to learn new skills which will help them to maintain and carry out small repairs to the bicycles.The bikes will enable the young people to pursue a new hobby and encourage lifelong active participation.

Sam Mason who attends the youth club on a weekly basis said: “It’s really nice to see agencies such as the Police and the Cycling Club help us young people towards our achievements. We are really learning a lot here and I’m really looking forward to using the skills that the cycling club are teaching us when it comes to our expedition section of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.”

Steve Durham from Rochdale Cycling Club said: “It’s refreshing to see such enthusiasm in young people and its projects like these that are co-ordinated by Rochdale Youth Service which we are more than happy to support as a club. We will continue to offer whatever support we can to these young people for the duration of this project and for any other projects in the future.”

Mohammed Zarafat from Rochdale Youth Service added: “The young people have developed a keen interest which really started when they had heard that the international event of the Le Tour de France was to go through Rochdale. They managed to plan and deliver the Tour de Pennnies with support from the Youth Service and Rochdale Cycling Club.

“It was really good of Chief inspector Nadeem Mir to look into and attain the bikes for the young people to continue to pursue their interests with cycling. After this phase of the programme the young people will be working closely with the Youth Service in further developing their skills through the attainment of the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Bronze Level Award. To attain the award the young people plan to cycle a specifically planned route by qualified youth workers who have a specialism in delivering the award.”