News
The Duchess visits the Ebony Horse Club in Brixton
10th September 2008
The Duchess Cornwall presented riding trophies to young people at the Ebony Horse Club in Brixton. She had the opportunity to view the club’s plans for a new riding centre before meeting supporters and young people who use the Club.
Ros Spearing established the Ebony Horse Club in 1996 to enable children from eight to 19 years old from central Brixton’s Coldharbour Ward to access horses and riding.
Twelve years on, she says it is vital that money is raised for their own purpose built riding centre to develop the project which means so much to children in the local community, based in one of the capital’s most deprived areas.
Expanding the project would take more youngsters off the street and teach them important social skills.
Many of the club members are children with special educational needs, those who have been excluded from school, and those in need of extra support.
The club uses horses and riding to facilitate teaching of five key social skills: punctuality, regular attendance, commitment to improvement, team work and preparing for an exam. The Club then works with families and schools to transfer these skills into the classroom and the playground.
The Club is a socially inclusive community project managed by a committee of parents and local supporters which takes children who have never sat on a horse through to competitive riding.
The club’s activities, delivered by youth workers, consist of regular riding lessons at London riding schools; classroom lessons about horse care; and educational visits.
The Duchess of Cornwall discussed the Club’s plans with Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for the Olympics, the Mayor of London and Valerie Shawcross, Patron of the Ebony Horse Club.
Her Royal Highness also met the mother and sister of Nathan Foster, a promising rider and one of the Club’s youth workers who was tragically shot and killed in Brixton in August 2007.