How a Bristol boxing charity 'started by accident' now helps thousands of young people

Empire Fighting Chance in Easton supports thousands of young people every year, aiming to help those facing challenging circumstances by offering life-changing services.

The charity uses non-contact boxing combined with psychology, therapy, and careers advice to help some of the most vulnerable young people in the city.

Martin Bisp, CEO and co-founder, and it all started accidentally back in 2006 with Jamie Sanigar. Martin was running the Empire amateur boxing club, and Jamie was running the professional club. 

Martin recalls how one Friday night changed everything: “We saw two young men we knew dealing drugs in the park. We went over to have a chat about what was going on and why they were doing it. 

“We invited them back into the gym, we did a little bit of boxing work with them and didn’t think anymore of it, but we said to them ‘the gym is yours anytime we want to come back’.”

This grew over time and soon there was more than 50 young people coming to the gym five nights a week for free. 

Martin and Jamie were wondering how they were going to carry on at this point, and they were both working full time and splitting the gym nights between them. 

Soon enough they got a call from a school about a student they’d been working with, to see if they could work with others. 

This snowballed - more schools called who could offer money, and eventually Martin and Jamie hired their first employee. 

Martin said this was enough for them though: “We had no interest in anything else at the time. We were a small boxing club doing our bit.” 

Six months later a young man came to them who was going to get kicked out of school and it came to light this was because he didn’t understand maths, so rather than getting something wrong in class he would play up to get sent out. 

Martin said: “We did basic numeracy with him to boost his confidence and keep him in school. We had someone else who was referred to us with mental health issues and the school didn’t know what to do with him, so we called CAMHS - the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.”

From there, they started to create programmes that “made a lasting change”. 

Fast-forward to 2012 and Martin met someone from a charity in Brazil that got millions of pounds of funding - working to change lives through boxing. 

Jamie went out to Rio and the duo realised they needed to become a formal charity too. 

Eight months later - Empire Fighting Chance (EFC) was born: “Since then we’ve grown quite a lot. We run three programmes. A mentoring programme that’s psychologically-informed by having a psychologist two days a week. 

“We deal with young people who are told what they should and shouldn’t do, where they should and shouldn’t go, and what they should and shouldn’t think - we don’t think it’s right.” 

They also run a box therapy programme which is where young people can receive therapy alongside training, and then a box careers programme to get people into work. 

In November last year EFC celebrated its 10th anniversary and they’re now supporting around 10,000 young people across the UK, including 3,600 in Bristol and South Wales. 

Martin said: “That’s the humbling bit, the impact is huge.”

In terms of feedback, 76% of young people are less likely to commit a criminal offence after training with EFC, and 90% feel happier and more confident.

Picking out some examples that stand out, Martin said: “One young person wouldn’t even come into the gym the first time we worked with them, it was done through the car window. 

“A year later they’d applied to university, they wanted to do psychology and their personal statement was all about how Empire had changed their life and they wanted to use what they’d learnt from us to go and help other people.

“We’ve got young people that have exited gangs, young people that have got back into school, and young people that have become less violent. 

“From our point of view, what I do know is that every single day we help change lives, that’s the one thing I’m always confident in. 

“The work is good, the feedback is good, the impact is high, so we know we’re making a difference.”