Pictured: Steve Binns (left) and Danny Baldwin (right) of Pertemps Coachright, join Chief Inspector Mandy Platt and local footballers (from left) Lloyd Cooper, Bradley Lowe, Mitchell Magher and Jack Martin, at the tournament in Friar Park, Wednesbury, organized by National Citizens Service youngsters

West Midlands teenagers who have devoted time and energy to help people in their local communities as part of David Cameron's Big Society achieved one of their goals when they staged a football tournament.

Through the new National Citizens Service (NCS), 23 young people from Sandwell and Walsall have gained a range of new skills and qualifications to help them make a positive impact in their own communities by staging events and helping other people.

The youngsters, among the first in the country to join the national community empowerment initiative, invited young people from across the region to enter teams in a tournament staged at Friar Park, Sandwell.

They were supported by coaches from Pertemps Coachright, and local police officers and PCSOs. West Midlands Police's Police Property Act Fund made a donation of £3,470 to Pertemps Coachright to support the event, paying for trophies and the hire of pitches and other expenses. The donation also covered other events the NCS youngsters were involved in. The PPA Fund is funded by the auctioning of detained property that has not been claimed within 12 months. This money is then returned to the local community.

Steve Binns, of Pertemps Coachright, said: "The tournament was the culmination of all the hard work by the young people involved in the National Citizens Service. They used all the skills they had learned during a summer of training and activities. It was a fantastic success and it was great to see so many young people getting together and enjoying an event organised by their peers."

The NCS team organised team recruitment, fixtures, refereeing, registering players, and presentation of trophies. Teams came from Yew Tree estate in Walsall and Friar Park in Wednesbury.

At the start of the summer Pertemps Coachright brought together the group of young people, aged 15 and 16, to help develop their skills and prepare them for delivering social action programmes back into their own communities. They took part in a wide range of activities, including two residential courses, as part of the NCS Catch 22 partnership - one of 12 NCS pilot schemes nationally.

All the participants gained their sports leader qualifications and many have already started to plan activities which will make a difference to other young people in their own communities.

Pertemps Coachright is a non-for-profit organisation delivering sports based social inclusion programmes in the hardest to reach communities across Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country. Much of the work it does utilises sport as a vehicle to achieve a multitude of positive outcomes.

For more information about Pertemps People Development Group, please visit their website here: www.ppdg.co.uk