IT started out small but now, 10 years later, has become one of the highest-profile organisations in Glasgow's South Side. Russell Leadbetter meets Raza Sadiq, co-founder of Active Life, which has successfully channelled huge numbers of local youngsters into sport.

RAZA SADIQ taps the faces of the youngsters as he scans the sports-group photographs that hang in frames on his office wall.

"This one's at college, so is that one," he says, without fuss. Tap, tap.

"This one's at university, this one's going to college." Tap, tap again. College, college, university.

"Don't get me wrong," Raza says. "We know we're not going to be able to help every young person in Glasgow's Govanhill, and not all of them are going to go to college. But in 10 years I like to think we've been good for a lot of them."

Further evidence of his organisation's good work lies on the small table beneath the photographs, on which there are no fewer than 16 trophies and awards ("there's another three in a box somewhere," says Raza, almost in passing).

The most recent addition is the Evening Times' engraved glass trophy, a team trophy presented in the Community Champions' South Side awards.

Raza, 47, himself received a certificate for making the shortlist of the individual category.

Active Life is the name of the organisation and it was a decade ago that it was put together by Raza and a few like-minded souls.

Since then, it has dedicated itself to working with some of the city's disadvantaged and excluded groups and helping to improve their mental, physical and social well-being.

It has channelled hundreds of youngsters into sport, mainly football, badminton and cricket. Its senior cricket team plays in the third division of the Western District Cricket Union.

It has lost count of the number of youth coaches it has trained, the personal and social development courses it has run, the number of young people it has encouraged to improve at schoolwork.

It has helped improve health and fitness levels within the area's ethnic minorities and it has brought together police and the local young Asian community so that they can understand each other better.

And two years ago, in Govanhill, under its All Different but United banner (the work of Omar, Raza's son, an actor and artist), Active Life staged the Eid in the Park, when people from 18 different nationalities were entertained by Slovak dancers and singers, solo singers from Scotland and China, and Irish dancers.

"Active Life provides a much-needed service to youngsters, and its volunteer leaders set a great example of what can be achieved if given support," says chief superintendent John Pollock, former head of community safety at Strathclyde Police.

Not bad, all told, especially when you consider that Active Life is run by 11 volunteers on the proverbial shoestring from an impressively cramped office at Govanhill Workspace, a converted church within sight of Holyrood Secondary.

Raza, a father of two, and Active Life's chairperson, is originally from Pakistan, and emigrated here in 1989.

He was a trained aeronautical engineer, but initially worked in retail in Scotland. He studied automotive technology but, realising it wasn't for him: "began shifting myself into community work, starting as an advocacy worker and then studying community education at Glasgow University."

He has worked with Careers Scotland for the last seven years and considers himself lucky that, in his day job as well as his voluntary work, he gets to work with young people: "I felt I was the right person for this sort of work."

As an advocacy worker he tried to raise the health profile of Glasgow's Asian men, as there was very little for them then.

"Active Life was started to work with them," he says, "and the initial budget was just £50, with people contributing a fiver here and a tenner there, and we set up a wee committee and a bank account."

Raza explains: "There was no big vision of where we were going. The idea was just to structure something, to get something off the ground and offer local Asian men regular badminton sessions.

"Slowly and gradually, it began widening its reach, though the huge focus is still on young people, who are the future, after all.

"Active Life has got really big. At one stage we were offering young people five sessions a week of sports such as badminton, football, cricket and basketball, as well as taking them on outdoor pursuit weekends.

"Some of the youngsters we had been working with started showing an interest and were taken on to the committee and were entered on courses. They now play a big part in the day-to-day running. I think the reason why we are so well accepted among young people is that young people are part of it.

In spite of everything it has done, Active Life does not throw money around in the hope that some of it will stick.

Its annual accounts for 2007/08 show that its total income in the year to last September was just £18,572. With expenses and other costs amounting to £18,200, that left a surplus of just £372.

Much of its money goes on training costs and on sports-related charges. The office in Govanhill does not have a phone, just Raza's mobile, his constant companion.

Recent activities included co-staging a child abuse workshop with the Roshni project, and having its vice-chair, Osman Mehmood, shadow the well-known Glasgow MSP Bashir Ahmad, who sadly died earlier this year.

"At the moment we're thinking we have reached a peak, and where can we take things for the next 10 years?" says Raza. "Now is the time. We take the view that we're mature enough to go forward, with lots of young people coming through who will be ready to play a role."

And, with that, as if on cue, his phone goes. It's hard work being Raza Sadiq. www.activelifeclub.org. Raza can be contacted on 07791 896 634.