In early June, young people from our Girls Win and London Futures programmes travelled to the Lee Valley Water Centre to take on the ‘Water Wipeout’ inflatable obstacle course. Young people weaved their way through obstacles, crawled under nets and took on the slide as they worked together in teams, racing one another to see who could get round first.
The young people had great fun and it was amazing to see how they supported each other, especially those who felt less confident and had to overcome their initial fears. The day event also provided a great opportunity to cross collaborate our Girls Win and London Futures programmes, allowing all of the young people to meet some new faces from different parts of London and build new friendship connections.
We received some brilliant feedback from our young people about the trip. Hear what they shared below:
CD: “It was a fun day out and a bit scary at first but I got onto some obstacles! Seeing JH and Ryan falling off was the highlight of my day!”
LC-N: “It was a very good experience, I’ve never done anything like that before so it’s a new tick of a box of something I’ve done, enjoyed and would love to do again”.
RC: “I liked wearing the wetsuit because it made me look cool. The swimming was good, and I liked the course because I got to show off my skills in parkour. The swimming was fun!”
Our Senior Coach Mentor, James Wischhusen also shared: “London Futures and Girls Win coming together to take part in Water Wipeout was an incredible experience. The young people had a lot of fun, overcoming their fears and challenging themselves, seeing them working together and helping each other out was amazing to see”.
This fantastic opportunity came about through us receiving funding from the Lee Valley Park Authority ‘Community Access Fund’.
Jack Pringle, the Sport and Active Recreation Manager at Lee Valley Park Authority said: “Lee Valley Regional Park Authority are delighted to be working in partnership with The Change Foundation courtesy of our Community Access Fund (CAF). Our CAF programme provides funded opportunities for disadvantaged and underrepresented groups in sport and physical activity to access our sporting venues. This includes for example, Lee Valley White Water Centre, Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre and Lee Valley VeloPark, all of which are currently celebrating their 10-year anniversary of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Jack added: “It is really important that we continue to reach out and engage with community partners such as The Change Foundation, who deliver some incredibly impactful work with marginalised communities. Importantly, this aligns very closely to our priorities as a Sport and Active Recreation Team and we therefore hope we can continue to deliver meaningful programmes in partnership over the months and years ahead”.
Young people from our Girls Win and London Futures programme will be returning to the Lee Valley Water Centre in August to take on their ‘Water Rafting’ course to gain new skills, have fun and create more brilliant memories.
To find out more about our Girls Win and London Futures programmes, please contact Ryan Jones at ryanjones@changefdn.org.uk .
