Hundreds of young people from across England and Wales have been empowered by the Premier League and professional football clubs to share their views on the issues that are affecting them and their communities, as part of the Premier League Youth Summit 2022.
Held at BBC Media City in Salford, and delivered in partnership with BBC Children in Need, the virtual summit encouraged 11-18-year-olds, representing 61 professional football club community organisations, to engage in discussions on these themes:
• equality, diversity and inclusion
• community safety and youth violence
• youth employment
The Summit brought together young people from across the Premier League Kicks community programme – including those taking part in one-on-one Kicks Targeted support sessions and the female empowerment activity of Changemakers. The participants involved also contributed to discussions on community safety and youth employment in their area.
A group of young people from the Northampton Town Community Trust’s Premier League Kicks activity took part in this year’s Premier League Youth Summit. Participants from Queensway and Hemmingwell groups in Wellingborough joined together to take part in the live stream youth summit event and played football afterwards. The event took place at Glamis Hall, Queensway, Wellingborough. Kicks coach Matthew Loak and volunteer Dominic Cole helped Anna Letts, Premier League Kicks co-ordinator facilitate and host the event.
“I was pleased that participants attended from different groups so they got a chance to mix their ideas and opinions and see if the same issues around community violence and safety were affecting them or not," said Anna.
"They also shared some perceptive thoughts on the different aspects of equality, diversity and inclusion. They engaged easily with the activities set by the Premier League host on screen and discussed what was relevant to them, their lives and where they live. This type of youth voice event enables young people to express their views and they came up with some positive ideas for social action projects going forwards. It was also great to see them interacting so well together when they played football afterwards, creating a friendly atmosphere.”
Premier League Head of Community, Nick Perchard said: “The Premier League is committed to promoting equality and giving young people from different backgrounds the opportunity to have their say. The Premier League Youth Summit offers young people from across England and Wales the chance to come together to discuss the topics that matter to them, to help shape their communities.
“Our Premier League Changemakers, Kicks and Kicks Targeted activity supports more than 80,000 young people every year, so we know how important it is for the League and our clubs to be able to provide positive activities both on and off the pitch.
“It’s vital that we continue to support and empower young people from every part of the community to tell us about what matters to them and seek their thoughts on how the Premier League can best support them with the challenges they face in their everyday lives.”
The virtual Premier League Youth Summit began in the 2020/21 season, with the aim of involving and supporting young people in positive conversation, while empowering them to tackle issues that affect their communities. More than 1000 young people have contributed to the discussions to date.
Over the next three years, the Premier League will continue its world-leading levels of support by contributing £1.6 billion to communities and the wider game.
Visit premierleague.com for more information.