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Give Drugs the Red Card
Christopher Shaw Cup is an annual tournament organised by volunteers from Newhill Football Club and Youth Soccer Tournament. This event was held during the last weekend in August over two venues Boucher Road Playing Fields and Blanch Flower, a total of 38 teams from all parts of Northern Ireland participated in the 3 day tournament bringing with them large groups of supporters. During the final days of both tournaments a family fun day theme was also incorporated to encourage family members to participate in the event. As with any event being held this was made a success by all the volunteers and funders (particularly Belfast City Council who funded all four tournaments) who seen the value in this tournament. During these tournaments numerous clubs have seen the value in the Give drugs the red card initiative and approached the CAST workers to receive the drug awareness training for their coaches and promote the program in their areas.
Give Drugs The Red Card is a campaign and prevention program targeted at all types of sporting groups with the aim of educating and informing coaches on drug awareness and where to signpost people who need help. The initiative also works with local clubs and organisations to provide drug awareness training and to host football tournaments to help promote and encourage participation within the sporting field. Over the last 2 years Give Drugs the RED Card have worked in partnership with numerous local and statutory organisations to develop and implement various large football tournaments over all parts of Belfast. Over the past few years we have been greatly supported by Belfast City Councils Pete Murray, Antisocial Behaviour Co-ordinator for Parks who has supported the CAST team especially during the summer months of July and August this year. The community support workers were able to work on four sporting tournaments or events across Belfast City. These included EDACT Interventional Cup – North Belfast, Street by Street League – South Belfast, Victoria Park Sports Day – East Belfast and Christopher Shaw Cup – West Belfast. These tournaments or events may have varied in size and duration but all had the same principles in mind: have fun, promote a healthier lifestyle through football and become involved in the Give drugs the red card initiative. The events were able to draw around 2,500 people into our local parks with the aim of promoting a healthier lifestyle.
Street by Street League is a new drive by the Mount Community Association to draw together young people from Inner East Belfast, Lower Woodstock and Lagan Village with the aim of building a stronger community through providing diversionary programmes, training and education. This was the first year for the Street By Street league and with the assistance of the CAST team form FASA and EXIT, an eight week football coaching and tournament is being run in Ormeau Park, South/East Belfast. Approximately 100 young people from the age of 7 to 25 have been meeting each week for two hours to participate in a programme that consists of football skill sessions, drugs awareness and tournament matches. The teams have been made up of local young people from the surrounding streets varying between young boys and girls as well as a mixture of ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds including Nigerian and Polish and have showed a great commitment to participate over the eight weeks. The tournament has had various interested
EDACT Interventional Cup is now in its third year in partnership with Loughside FC, the tournament is held every year during the last week of August at Grove Playing fields and caters for age groups from Under 10‟s to seniors. Each year over 32 teams participate in this tournament from all parts of Belfast, with a large volume of people attending to play or as spectators, this is a great opportunity for the members of CAST to promote local drug and alcohol services and encourage clubs to gain drug awareness training. We have been able to use this event to engage a number of clubs to participate in training from the coaches with Understanding Substance Misuse a Guide for Coaches to parent through TATI and other parenting courses and even the young people who have taken part in Targeted Education which focuses on delivering a prevention model through informal training. The CAST Team have always looked forward to this event as host team Loughside Football Club always provide a pleasant environment with top class organisation even down to the burger tent on the Saturday that you can smell from 10 in the
Visitors from local counsellors, MLA‟s and local community organisations who have all come along to see the young people play and to voice their support for the project. The league will end with a football final and fun day with the presentations of awards and participant medals. The tournament has also drawn interest with further development through drug awareness with various programmes being planned over the next few months including training for parents and youth.
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