Hong Kong Rugby Union Launches Prison Program

January 11, 2019

A new prison rugby project established by the Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU) with the assistance of the Alliance of Sport, aims to link young offenders with vocational training, education and employment post-release, as well as offering them supportive peer groups, values and integrity.

Robbie McRobbie, CEO of Hong Kong Rugby Union, describes the evolution of the program, and how a meeting at a Beyond Sport event led to a partnership that is impacting lives:

The Hong Kong Rugby Union Community Foundation (HKRUCF) was established in March 2013 with the aim of using rugby and the HKRU brand to tackle social issues to bring about positive change within the greater community.

This move into the "sport-for-change sector" was partly inspired by the work of a local charity partner, Operation Breakthrough, that was set up by volunteer police officers and uses sport as a medium to help at-risk youth make better life choices. Because of the success of Breakthrough, addressing juvenile crime was one of the focuses of the HKRUCF right from the start.

We introduced a programme called “Don’t Drop the Ball” in conjunction with the Police Crime Prevention Bureau, working in local secondary schools to introduce the students to rugby and to encourage them to follow a healthy lifestyle and avoid drugs, triads and crime.

At the same time, at a Beyond Sport event, we’d had an opportunity to meet James Mapstone (Alliance of Sport Co-Founder and Chair) and got to see some of the ethos behind the Alliance of Sport. That inspired us to take the next step and see if we could actually get a programme running inside a prison.

It was agreed that we would run a pilot scheme at the Cape Collinson Correctional Institution, which has young offenders aged 16-23 years, and we commenced an initial eight-session introductory touch rugby course in August 2015.

This time the HKRU CF coaches and CSD staff introduced refereeing training into the programme to encourage some of the participants to look at full-time or part-time vocational opportunities upon their release.

HKRU already employ one former prisoner, and this is a link that we hope to develop further going forward.

We believe that the rugby clubs can offer a very positive environment for young men and women from troubled backgrounds – a supportive peer group, opportunity to build a new social network, and of course an emphasis on values and integrity.

HKRU will continue its partnership with Alliance of Sport and Operation Breakthrough while also communicating with Saracens Sport Foundation, to share best practice on how to use rugby to make life-changing impact for incarcerated youth.