Luke Lambrecht has started a campaign to help Children in the Inner City of Johannesburg by creating a safe space, using boxing to teach lifeskills
Fight with Insight was established in the city with the vision of creating a safe place for the children of Johannesburg, using boxing to teach them life skills that assist them in taking responsibility for claiming their rights.
Research by Princeton University in the US last year showed that physical activities undertaken at the same time as therapy helped children deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. The study revealed that the physical activity had a huge role to play in reducing the brain’s response to stress. It is one of the few programmes that focuses on the boy child. It intends to reclaim manhood and exit good men into the world.
“We are fighting for a society in which men are responsible and take responsibility for not harming themselves and others positively impacting on breaking the cycle of violence.”
It is visited by an average of 500 children per year, 70 of whom attend sessions every week. Applying the theoretical concepts of life space intervention. The gym is in itself a therapeutic frame, which, through the promotion of fitness, good nutrition, hygiene and life skills, not only addresses the health and psychosocial factors that contribute to the ongoing cycle of inequality, but also builds resilience within these children through the development of a positive peer culture and the cultivation of neighborhoods in the city, rather than the city being a transit point.
The intervention has been revolutionary in highlighting 3 key factors that can be applied within any intervention.
“We want to teach the children how not only to be the champions in the ring, but also champions in the world,” Lamprecht said.
“Firstly, that the work happens within the context of relationships, and relationships can happen anywhere. Secondly, that physical fitness is the cornerstone of good mental health, and finally that it is not something you do with children that makes a difference, it’s everything.”
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