An eight-week soccer coaching program at the Metropolitan Remand Centre (MRC) in Ravenhall is striving to help inmates break the cycle of reoffending.
Melbourne City Football Club (MCFC) has partnered with Corrections Victoria to deliver the program, known as the Twinning Project.
The program is being delivered to 16 participants at MRC by the charitable arm of the MCFC, City of Community.
Backed by a $30,000 investment, the pilot program delivers interactive training that focuses on teamwork, leadership, respectful relationships and engagement to increase employment opportunities and reduce reoffending upon release.
The program is delivered by coaching staff, mentors and various guest speakers who come from a range of cultural and professional backgrounds, each bringing different lived experiences to their coaching and sessions.
Last week, Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan joined MCFC to congratulate the graduates from the second round of the Twinning Project at the MRC.
“The Melbourne City Football Club Coaching Program offers people in prison a crucial opportunity to develop important skills that they can use in the real world,” he said.
“Engaging in teamwork and leadership exercises means people can leave prison with skills that boost their job prospects, enrich their lives, and help reduce their risk of returning to prison.”
MCFC is owned by Manchester City Football Club, which founded the Twinning Project in the United Kingdom. The Twinning Project is now delivered in over 70 prisons in the UK, the United States of America, Africa and now Australia.
The state government said the Twinning Project was one of a number of local education, training, employment services and community reintegration programs offered by Corrections Victoria to provide people in prison with the best chance of leading safe and productive lives when they return to the community.
The Victorian recidivism rate of former prisoners returning to prison under sentence within two years has remained lower than the national rate for the last five years, according to the government.
