The first-ever street gym made with recycled steel from deadly knives taken off the streets has opened.
The open-air gym has been erected in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, by the not-for-profit Raza Sana organisation, to help improve life for youngsters and steer them away from crime.
Raza Sana was set up earlier this year to create community wellbeing projects.
“I once stood where many of these young people are now,” Raza Sana’s founder Juan Lopez revealed. “I understand the challenges they face and the potential they hold.”
The father-of-two now living in Enfield recalls his own childhood growing up in a deprived neighbourhood in Tottenham “where crime felt my only option”.
He recalled: “Most of my older peers were involved in crime when I was growing up which led me to think I didn't have any alternative paths to follow.
“I explored other options and joined the Army because it gave me structure and discipline and felt respectable.
“This later inspired me to set up Raza Sana to show young people that there are other options and they can achieve anything.
“I wouldn't be the man I am today with my wife and two daughters if it wasn’t for taking that step in the Army and changing my life.”
Juan is using his experience to help deprived youngsters in Tottenham with the first of a chain of street gyms he hopes one day will appear up and down the country “to help change more lives”.
The Northumberland Park project is the first, launched on July 12 and jointly funded by the Gymbox fitness group and Haringey Council. It was officially opened by Cllr John Bevan, who represents Northumberland Park.
Children were among the first to try out the monkey bars, dip bars and pull-up bars.
Northumberland Park is just the beginning of a plan Raza Sana and Gymbox have for similar projects across London and eventually the rest of Britain, helping disadvantaged youngsters “build a life outside potential crime”.
Marc Diaper, from Gymbox, said: “We’re confident that this street gym will help to transform lives. Fitness should be accessible for all, to unlock their full potential.”
The two organisations got together through the Steel Warriors charity that takes knives off the streets by installing ‘amnesty knife bins’ at a growing number of locations across London. The steel from the knives is recycled to make outdoor gyms.
Haringey was the first local authority taking up the idea of turning deadly weapons into a street gym.
A summer exercise programme of free classes with professional fitness trainers is running three times a week for all ages at the street gym, next to Kenneth Robbins House tower block, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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