Shannia Gordon-Richards has a simple philosophy of life and work. “As long as I have food in my belly and clothes on my back I can always give,” says the woman who created a boxing club to help young people in Greenwich.

Gordon-Richards, founder of a young Greenwich start-up Power Mobile Gym (PMG), is mostly known as Coach Shan. PMG teaches young people to box, cook and write a CV, as well as about black history, conflict resolution and mental health.

Gordon-Richards’ passion for using sport to help people goes way back. In school, she asked her PE teachers if she could use the school hall to host a football fundraiser despite, by her own admission, not really understanding the rules.

She tried her hand at many sports before connecting with boxing at both emotional and physical levels.

“Boxing is known for being very disciplined, and a lot of the key fundamentals you learn in boxing you take into everyday life,” she says. “When you’re disciplined in one area of your life it forces you to be disciplined in other areas. It teaches you emotional strength as well.”

This is what makes boxing coaching “very emotionally rewarding”, she adds. But in a unique innovation, Coach Shan decided that the young people who come to her gym should be taught more than just to box. They should learn skills that would serve them outside the ring as well.

She explained: “We have a range of programs, including an employment pathway program, a boxing development program and a boxing empowerment program. The boxing empowerment program is one that I do in schools and consists of one boxing session and one classroom based session a week. The classroom sessions cover goal setting, handling emotions, taking accountability and an affirmations day where we literally just shout out positive things, especially with young people that don’t like each other. I really push on that and a lot of the time it actually squashes the problems that they’ve had in just that one session.”

Although the problem of toxic masculinity is not limited to Greenwich, Coach Shan says it is important to acknowledge its existence within her community and in boxing.

“Boxing is a sport that’s 95% male,” she says. “Toxic masculinity is a huge contributing factor in knife crime soaring up, a lot of violence, anger among young men and poor mental health, a lot of it is down to toxic masculinity.”

Like many other community interest companies PMG also felt the impact of the pandemic, but Coach Shan continued to provide the services she could.

“You can’t stop helping young people, you can’t stop youth services, you can’t stop these community organisations for the pandemic, you’re going to end up in a worse place. So we continued.”

She added, “We’re very close to the local council who’ve thanked us for what we’re doing. We’ve had police officers come in and commend us for the work we’re doing throughout the pandemic. A lot of young people have come out and said how our services have helped them.”

Now that the pandemic is entering a different phase and some in-person events are possible, PMG’s cooking classes will be held in person. The cooking is part of Coach Shan’s effort to challenge outdated gender stereotypes. “Our young men have to have the same skills as our young women. They can’t be relying on their wife to cook. I say to them in a jokey way, who says any woman wants you anyway?”

As well as providing the young boxers with a skill for life, she explains that the cooking classes help them appreciate those who cook for them at home. They also learn about different cultures.

“We’ve got Columbian, Afghan, Caribbean, African, Polish, we’ve got every culture in our room, we are the definition of multicultural – and I make sure that every culture and every person from any background that comes into our space know they’re part of the family regardless of where they’re from and what their story is.”

This brings Gordon-Richards to her story and that of the black community. She once asked her history teacher why they hadn’t learnt any black history in class. The answer didn’t satisfy her. If black history is taught, the teacher said, other races would complain that theirs hadn’t. Gordon-Richards was subsequently punished for daring to ask the question.

There is more mainstream awareness now of black history, but until the system fully catches up, Coach Shan says she has taken it upon herself to bridge the gap.

Her definition of black history is broad. It’s about “knowing that the 3D printer was invented by a black man…The gas mask, the filament light bulb, the steam lubricator for trains, traffic lights, the fridge – all of these things were invented by black people and no one knows. I’m not going to be one of these people who’ll just complain…if the education system won’t do it, fine, I’ll do it.”

PMG currently operates in and around Greenwich but it plans to expand all over the country and further afield.

Gordon-Roberts has already done a partnership deal with Rude Boy Gym in Jamaica.

which is just one step of many on the way to becoming a global operation.

Despite only being in operation for 18 months, PMG was nominated for London Sport’s Young Londoners Award in August 2021 – an award that celebrates the work of organisations who are proving young people with the best opportunity to live an active life.

Coach Shan admits she is proud of the nomination but prouder still of any help PMG has provided its young trainees.

“One of the really little kids that comes to the classes said to one of the junior coaches that when he grows up he wants to be just like him and parents have come to the gym to tell me how their sons’ lives have changed,” she says.

It’s all change for PMG too. Its home, the Woolwich Community Centre, is being knocked down to build flats and Coach Shan will be moving to a new boxing-specific venue. But for PMG and its founder, this is the start of an exciting new chapter.