Skip to main content
Our Objectives
Niall Quinn officially kicked off Cestria Community Housing partnership with SAFC Foundation as they launched a brand new sporting initiative to promote responsible citizenship. The Sunderland AFC Chairman and former Republic of Ireland international joined youngsters for a community kick around at The Hermitage School, Chester-Le-Street. Niall launched the joint initiative between Cestria Community Housing and the football club’s registered charity, which aims to involve Cestria tenants and their children in an exiting and challenging range of football and other sporting and educational activities.
As part of the project, two Sunderland AFC Foundation staff will work alongside Cestria staff to teach football skills and tackle issues such as poor health. Access to training and development opportunities, crime and unemployment issues will be addresses in SAFC Foundations Kickz programme, aimed at teenagers in estates identified as hotspot areas.
Family learning through football sessions will also run as part of the project, these highly acclaimed courses give children and their parents the opportunity to improve communication, learn together, improve their skills and inspire one another to achieve using football as the hook to encourage participation. A variety of community-based initiatives such as health workshops will also be launched and a steering group will be set up to include representatives from agencies such as the Police, Schools, District Council and Youth Offending Team.
Niall Quinn said ‘I am delighted to work alongside Cestria Community Housing and to be given the chance to team up with the youngsters and their families. Sport also plays a key role in engaging young people and teaching them how to develop their skills and abilities and how to become good citizens’ ‘The youngsters will get a great deal out of this and SAFC Foundation are looking forward to working with Cestria on community based initiatives which help to make a real difference to peoples lives’
Paul Tinnion, Cestria Community Housing Chairman said ‘We are thrilled that Niall agreed to join us at the launch of this initiative. Cestria Community Housing is about more that just providing houses. We want to help out tenants and their children have real choices in life and live on estates that reflect a sense of pride and community cohesion. We believe this initiative will provide real opportunities to many disadvantaged youngsters and I would like to encourage anyone interested to come along and find out what the programme has to offer.