New book on turning around lives

Boxer Billy Graham has paired up with journalist Phil Gifford to produce a guide for parents of teenage boys. It will be available in bookstores next month.

Graham says he would have been born on the wrong side of the tracks in Naenae “but my mates had already stolen them.”

His book is said to give parents and people organising youth groups a practical, detailed blueprint to turn around the lives of boys struggling with life.

Based on lessons learned the hard way it will  reveal the secrets behind one of the most remarkable success stories in New Zealand youth work, the Naenae Boxing Academy. A national boxing champion, and then a world  recognised motivational speaker, Billy came home to Naenae six years ago to set up the academy. Awards have flowed, local police say youth crime is down 30%, and a detailed Massey University study confirmed the academy’s amazing ability to help troubled boys become good young men.

Billy Graham won the “Local Hero” section of the 2011 New Zealander of the Year awards, and Phil Gifford is an award‐winning broadcaster and journalist. The author of 14 books, 10 of them
biographies, Gifford was the first person to be twice chosen as the New Zealand Sports Journalist of the Year.

Making Champion Men by Billy Graham with Phil Gifford is published by Hodder Moa and will be in bookstores on September 1, 2012

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