East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service launched a new initiative called BLAZE (Believe, Learn, Achieve, Zest, Explore) in Hailsham on 26th February 2009. BLAZE is all about fun and fitness combined with important fire and road safety messages.

Tipped to be a big success, the project has already secured £2,000 of funding from Hailsham supermarket, Tesco!

The aim of BLAZE is to target and work with 13-15 year old children with health issues, teaching them fire & road safety using fitness sessions as the medium. As acknowledgement of their hard work, the children will complete and receive the Bronze Youth Achievement Award certified by UK Youth.

UK Youth are a leading national youth work charity supporting over 750,000 young people, helping them to raise their aspirations, realise their potential and have their achievements recognised via non-formal, accredited education programmes and activities, such as BLAZE.

A wide-range of partners have helped to provide a series of six weekly sessions which feature activities such as street-dance, circuit training and mountain biking.

Also featured are classroom-based activities that discuss subjects such as bullying, alcohol, anti-social behaviour and healthy living.

These weekly sessions will be followed by a team-building weekend again promoting fire and road safety.

George O'Reilly, Station Manager for Hailsham, Herstmonceux and Pevensey, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, says:

"This great initiative has been developed by fire crews at Hailsham community fire station in conjunction with a wide variety of statutory and local partners. It shows how East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service and our partners are using local knowledge to identify specific community needs and, more importantly, are willing to provide adequate resources to meet those needs in areas that are not just limited to our own traditional areas of expertise.

We anticipate that this project will prove to be a great success and with adequate funding we hope to expand the provision of this course to other a reas of Wealden and East Sussex."

Once the programme has been successfully completed, each participant will receive either a Freedom Leisure pass or a place on a water sports course at Spray Water Sports Centre in Eastbourne.