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Press Releases
Radio Wales: boxing clever with disaffected youth
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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 91Èȱ¬ 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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91Èȱ¬ Wales Press Office
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