Jay is a 14 year old girl from Hackney and she lives with her younger brother and mother for whom she is the primary carer. She had poor self-esteem and low confidence when we first met her, and had developed eating disorders from stress. She didn’t feel she was good at anything.
LYR set up indoor rowing programme in her school and everyone was invited to have a go. She wasn’t interested at first, but our coach spotted her and told her she had talent. She started rowing on the indoor machines during her lunch hour occasionally but didn’t have any ambitions to get out on to the water.
One Saturday she cycled past the club where the same LYR coach was taking an on-the-water rowing session. One thing led to another and before long she was voted ‘outstanding athlete for the term’. She now covers all sport for the school website, she assists the school with a marking and judging panel for new teachers, she helps run the indoor rowing club and she has developed into an excellent single sculler.
On the indoor rowing machine she is above average nationally for her age, she organised the team for the NJIRC this year and she got to sit in one of the launches that follows the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, where she “got to watch the very, very cute boys”.
One day she may go to Oxford or Cambridge, she may achieve an Olympic medal, but that’s not the point. She is still the primary carer for her mother and brother. The point is that she now has something that’s hers and something that she’s good at. She is a different person today, more confident and with much higher self-esteem.