Boxing London Fire Brigade is teaming up with The Prince’s Trust to put on a unique boxing and firefighting skills course which it hopes will prove a knock out  with young people in Lambeth.

The course, which started on Monday (18, April), is run as part of The Trust’s ‘Get Started’ programme. ‘Get Started,’ offers young people between 16-25, who are out of work, education or training, the opportunity to take part in a week of activities with the help from inspirational experts.

The 15 young people selected for the free course will undertake activities and group challenges based around the fire station and boxing gym. These are all designed to improve confidence and life skills such as communication, working with others, reliability and setting and achieving goals.

At Clapham fire station they will get the opportunity to see what being a firefighter is all about, rolling out hoses and taking part in ladder and pumping drills. There will also be a visit to our Brigade’s River Station in Lambeth and a trip on the fireboat.

Back at Miguel’s Boxing Gym in Herne Hill activities will include boxing skills and fitness training alongside sessions on refereeing and coaching.

Borough Commander for Lambeth, Rick Ogden said: “This unique blend of boxing lessons, fitness and firefighter skills is fantastic opportunity for some of the more disadvantaged young people in our community to not only boost confidence and learn vital life skills, but to hopefully get inspired about potential career paths and opportunities.

“We already run a successful scheme in Lambeth, ‘Box Clever’, helping young people break away from gang culture by offering a project based around firefighter training and boxing. The Prince’s Trust saw what we were doing and we have now built on that work to design this new, unique week long course as part of its Get Started programme.”

National liaison officer for uniformed services at The Prince’s Trust, Chief Inspector Chris Conrad said: “This exciting partnership between the police and the fire service shows how working together can really break down barriers between us and the young people of London and how, wherever you come from and whatever your background we can all learn from each other.”

In addition to the Lambeth ‘Box Clever’ project London Fire Brigade run  two major London-wide youth engagement projects. The Local Intervention Fire Education (LIFE) course, originally launched in 2002 in Tower Hamlets now operates in all London boroughs and has helped more than 12,000 young people by teaching them firefighter skills such as first aid and casualty rescue skills alongside general life skills including leadership and teamwork. The Fire Cadets scheme offers young people between 14 and 18, the opportunity to get a nationally recognised qualification, while developing their personal skills.