Breaking Boundaries in Bradford With Khawar

Today we are getting to know Khawar from Bradford who has been a Community Champion through the Breaking Boundaries project. Khawar shares with us the skills and teachings he has gained through Breaking Boundaries and how he has excelled to become a mentor through this project. 

Breaking Boundaries is a three-year programme (2018 –2021) funded by Spirit of 2012, supported by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and The Institute of Community Cohesion (Icoco).

It aims to socially connect young people, their families and communities together through regular cricket engagement, fostering mutual respect and friendships by playing, spectating and volunteering.  It is being delivered in 5 cities; Bradford, Birmingham, London (Barking and Dagenham), Manchester and Slough.

Breaking Boundaries places communities and young people are at the heart of the programme as Khawar highlights:

My name is Khawar, I live in Bradford and I became involved with the Breaking Boundaries project through the local Youth Workers at a Youth Club that I attend.

I became a Community Champion as I was interested in developing my skills and working with my peers on a project that would help bring the community together.

Breaking Boundaries allows me a space to do something good with my friends and also make new friends.

Through Breaking Boundaries I have been able to go on training courses such as First Aid and development as part of the experience.

This helped me to produce our community plan to deliver a project a viewing for the 2019 World Cup Final at a local youth centre, as a lot of young people and the community are interested in cricket.

I really do believe that cricket is a connector for different communities and my experiences with my own community project highlighted just that.

It was amazing to see everyone come together to see England win the final!

I enjoy working with the Leaders and my peers and friends at the Centre and it has been great to see our plan come together and the World cup final event was really special as a lot of people attended and England won!

In the future, I hope the skills I have learnt will enable me to fulfil my dream of getting a job where I can help people and see them smile and have fun.

This includes everybody not just young people – I can then help the community and put further events on to bring us all together and challenge some of the issues we face, like discrimination and crime in the area.

Thanks to Breaking Boundaries my experience to date has made me a more confident and knowledgeable person.

I also enjoy the fact that my friends and Youth Work Leaders are happy with my input. I have made new friends and also learnt new skills – so much so that I am now a Mentor with Breaking Boundaries and get to wear my orange hoody!!