Team rebound

Local organization BUMP puts youth in
motion on the court and in the hood

ENCOURAGING HEALTHY COMPETITION: Ronald Mungal

by LINA HARPER

Though they may have witnessed more than their share of violent crime over the years, and have a notoriously high high-school drop-out rate, the youth of Little Burgundy are ripe with potential, says the Burgundy Urban Mediation Project’s Ronald Mungal.

With a clientele largely consisting of visible minorities, in a neighbourhood possessing the highest concentration of subsidized housing in Montreal, BUMP’s latest project is a basketball league for the community’s kids. In March, BUMP pitched the idea to the English Montreal School Board’s alternative schools, where many drop-outs end up before they fall off the radar.

Spearheaded by Mungal and his BUMP mediators, Steve Edwards and Francesco Cuevas, the Alternative Basketball League currently runs with the help of teachers as volunteer team coaches, a School Board-funded ref and snacks from a local organization called Generations. So far, six out of nine alternative high schools are on board with a promise from the School Board to continue the league in the fall.

“There was a big demand for basketball because the kids were saying there weren’t any sports they wanted to play,” says Mungal. “This is healthy competition. It’s teaching them how to compete at a high level and still accept a loss without getting pissed off, wanting to damage property or vandalize.”

The southwest Montreal neighbourhood has long been plagued with gang activity, drugs, unemployment and violence—40 youths have been murdered here since 1990.

“The kids are dealing with a wide range of issues,” says Cuevas. “We’re talking about violence, committing crimes, poverty, single parent homes. It’s similar to Montreal North, the difference is pretty much the language—here we have an anglophone community.”

“Let’s me put it to you this way,” adds Mungal. “Many are underprivileged, at-risk kids who’ve had encounters with the law and who have not had the greatest upbringing. By creating the ABL, we wanted them to be excited, to feel good about themselves and be a part of something. For us, being a part of something means you belong somewhere.”

Edwards, Cuevas and Mungal hope that as this generation of BUMP kids get older, they’ll want to get involved at the level of organizing or mentoring kids who are in similarly precarious situations.

BUMP, which started out as an organization that mediates conflict between youth and the police in the area, have recently redoubled their efforts and expanded their goals to civic education and employment and community referrals.

But they’re still struggling. Mungal says BUMP is always looking for funding for trophies and a scoreboard of their own, as well as for other activities for the youth in the community.

They also want to make sure that there’s a range of activities for everyone.

“Unfortunately there aren’t enough girls to make a team, so we integrated them into the other teams,” Mungal says. Of course that could change if enough girls join the ABL in the fall. There are additional plans to organize a football league and, for those less interested in team sports, workshops on sports journalism and blogging.

“Right now, it’s about physical activity, and then later, we’ll see,” says Mungal. “It’s just nice when you see the joy on their faces.”

TO CONTACT BUMP, CALL
(514) 931-3157 OR E-MAIL
RONALDBUMP@GMAIL.COM