There is already a lot of work going on on the second level of the City Rondell. Hard-working helpers from Boxing VS and the ProKids Foundation have set up a boxing ring there. Will there be a boxing match on the upcoming Sunday when shops are open? Not at all. The organizers want to demonstrate their integrative boxing project "Fight for your life" to the many shoppers there.

This is undoubtedly the social project that has made the most headlines in the city recently. It is about teaching young people from socially disadvantaged families, many of them with a migrant background, through daily boxing training that hard work, discipline and a strong will are the keys to success in life. "Fight for your life" is an initiative by Oliver Vlcek, the former national boxing coach and honorary chairman of Boxing VS, and is now run under the umbrella of the ProKids Foundation.

It is thanks to the foundation that "Fight for your life" continued after the city dropped the project financially like a hot potato in the summer. After state funding ran out, Vlcek needed new sponsors. However, a majority in the local council indicated that they would refuse to provide a grant for financing. Mayor Dr. Kubon then took the item off the agenda. "Fight for your life" had an existential funding gap and was on the verge of collapse, although the district stood firmly behind the concept and project sponsor Thorsten Frei also campaigned for a rethink. But even the influential member of the Bundestag, who is also the patron of the ProKids Foundation, was unable to succeed on a political level.

However, he saved "Fight for your life" with the help of the ProKids Foundation, which had supported Oliver Vlcek in its founding years ago. The chairman of the foundation board, Joachim Spitz, and his colleagues were also reliable - they stepped in on behalf of the city and bridged the biggest funding gap so that the educational boxing training could continue.



Oliver Vlcek, now sports director of the Württemberg Boxing Association, is extremely happy about this. Together with Joachim Spitz, he wants to communicate his activities to opponents of boxing and make it clear to them that this discipline can have a high social-educational value. The Rotary Club of Villingen-Schwenningen has long recognized this and awarded the project and its creator Oliver Vlcek the Paul Harris Prize for social commitment - as did Joachim Spitz the following year, who with his foundation has initiated and led to the success of a wealth of successful social projects over the past ten years.

"Our goal," says Spitz, "is to publicize our boxing project on Sunday and to introduce interested parties to our educational approach." He is firmly convinced that "Fight for your life" is a good fit for a regional center. "Villingen-Schwenningen needs something like this, and Oliver Vlcek is an outstanding professional with enormous commitment to the young people he takes under his wing. He is unrivaled." City Rondell manager Rudolf Haselbach shares this view and is therefore making the presentation space in the center available to the foundation. "It goes without saying," says Haselbach.

The opportunity to present oneself in the centrally located shopping center in the city center is also good for addressing children and young people directly. Joachim Spitz and Oliver Vlcek agree: "We want to reach the problem kids where they are usually found."