Eva moved from West Africa to Hackney when she was 10 years old to live with family members because her parents wanted her to come to England for better educational opportunities. The family fell on hard times and Eva ended up being passed from family member to family member and eventually to social services and into foster care. Eva was introduced to SkyWay at the age of 14 through her interest in sports, and she took part in SkyWay’s football tournament ‘Teenage Kicks’.
Her care situation eventually became permanent, which allowed her to be more settled and her confidence increased. Eva continued to engage with SkyWay through both detached youth work sessions and weekly multi-sports sessions run at a community centre close to where she lived. Through continued engagement in the sports programmes Eva became interested in becoming a coach herself and one of SkyWay peer leaders. Eva trained as a peer leader, completing all of the training, and delivered over 120 hours of volunteering at youth clubs, community centres, holiday programmes, schools and tournaments whenever she was available.
Eva also completed a number of training programmes in that time, as well as her own studies at college. She has completed a level one youth work qualification, which on top of her weekly sports sessions that she runs at a community centre, has enabled her to shadow some experienced youth workers. She has now been offered a job as a supporting youth worker at an after school club in two separate locations in Hackney on two separate nights.