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Radio Wales: boxing clever with disaffected youth


While leading politicians in Westminster are talking about getting boxing into schools to help turn around disaffected youth, a school in Monmouth has already proved that boxing can change some young lives for the better, with one former pupil saying that boxing has saved his life.

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In the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Wales documentary Boxing Is Fighting Back on Saturday 31 May (1.30 and 6.30pm), Sarah Dickins learns how one of Wales' up-and-coming boxers, the Commonwealth Bronze medallist Mo Nasir from Newport, helped change the lives of teenage boys who were out of control.

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Seventeen-year-old Ieuan Evans, from Monmouth, has kicked his drugs habit and is working as a labourer.

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He says it was the school getting him involved in boxing that helped him kick the drug habit.

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Ieuan admits he was out of control before taking up boxing, smoking cannabis by the age of 12 and drinking by the age of 13.

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"I was quite drunk all the time and stoned and constantly smoking fags. I must admit I've done some stupid things, walked up the town with blow and people thought it was a cigar. I was a mess by the time I reached the top of the town," he says.

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Andy Williams, the Deputy Head of Monmouth Comprehensive, discovered that Ieuan had a passion for boxing and took him to St Josephs Boxing Gym in Pill in Newport – arranging for him and a group of other pupils to train with Mo Nasir.

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Ieuan started to get involved in boxing training, gave up drugs and cigarettes and says that boxing saved his life.

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Andy Williams says: "We don't give up on young people and that's very important to me.

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"I believe that behaviours can be changed and that's the starting point. If you don't think behaviours can be changed you might as well give up."

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He explains: "Lots of people take drugs because they don't value themselves, they don't see that they're worth anything, so drugs take them to a different place.

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"But for Ieuan there was that slight glimmer of hope that his self-respect and self-esteem could be developed if he just concentrated and focused on that sport."

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Monmouth Comprehensive has now set up a boxing club at the school and twice a week Mo Nasir trains pupils with a whole range of backgrounds.

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The boxer believes many more young people can be turned away from a life of drugs or violence by boxing.

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He says: "You see a lot of people on the streets, they're drinking, taking drugs, causing problems, problems with the police and I think when you bring them to the gym it changes them completely because it's a discipline."

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Boxing Is Fighting Back is the story of how the lives of Ieuan Evans and other teenagers in Monmouth have already been changed by boxing being brought into school.

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Notes to Editors

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Pictures available on request.

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´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales Press Office

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Category: Wales
Date: 23.05.2008
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