Thank You From The Change Foundation Team

It has been another unforgettable year for our charity. As lockdown restrictions eased, we saw an explosion of celebration and opportunities burst out of our programmes. The following highlights are a few of the unforgettable moments that have taken place over the past 12-months.

In early spring, as whispers of the Ukraine war turned into breaking news headlines, our charity flew to Przemysl Poland to provide sports activities to Ukrainian children settled in refugee camps. Unknowingly then, our team would later go on to host summer and Christmas Ukraine refugee sports camps in Sussex and have since established plans to work in Moldovan refugee camps in 2023.

Some of our team also flew to New Zealand, to launch our ‘Change the Game Not the Girl’ campaign to a global audience. Change the Game Not the Girl tackles the barriers that marginalised women and girls face when taking part in sports. The campaign actively adapts sports to be more inclusive, encourages more women to take on coaching and leadership roles and shares coaching techniques to help women and girls embed sport into their lives. The response to the campaign so far has been inspiring. We look forward to watching international communities use the campaign to make sports more inclusive for marginalised women and girls.

Our long-awaited 40th Anniversary gala also took place in the spring, gathering TCF supporters from across the world together after a year of suspense. Our much-anticipated Street Elite 10-Year Anniversary celebration (also put on hold from 2021) would also welcome an inspirational network of Berkeley Foundation supporters and Street Elite participants from across our Birmingham and London networks and celebrate a decade of life-changing coaching with some of the UK’s most under supported communities.

We also welcomed new faces to our charity as our team of Coach Mentors, Trustees, Finance Coordinators, Ambassadors and Head Office Coordinators developed throughout 2022. We are sad to have said goodbye to a few incredible members of our team, however we wish them the best of luck and thank them for their life-changing work over the years.

Our active sports programmes continued to support young people from across London, Brighton, Newcastle, Bristol and Birmingham. We were proud to achieve an 80% success rate of transition into employment, education, training or starting a business or charity on our four core programmes and saw the programme residentials involve young people in white water rafting, abseiling, baking, swimming and kayaking. Our VI Rugby programme also had a ground-breaking year, supporting visually impaired communities in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Italy. With plans to host the first ever VI Rugby World cup in 2023, we can’t wait for the adaptive sport to reach even greater heights.

Our Events and Challenges network also had a monumental year. Over 100 people braved the choppy waters of the Thames in kayak challenges throughout the year, golfers from across London overcame the soaring 40-degree summer temperatures to take part in our annual golf tournament and runners tackled marathons (some running backwards!) to dominate initial fundraising targets. An inspiring network of TCF supporters also hiked, painted, cycled, wine-tasted, bid in auctions and attended galas to give more under-supported young people the opportunity to access our life-changing programmes.

The work of our charity and Coach Mentors would not be possible without the enthusiasm and support of our phenomenal fundraisers, partners and donors. Thank you to every single individual that contributed to our charity this year. You have directly allowed us to support communities and young people on both an international and national scale. We look forward to the New Year and can’t wait to see what adventures and moments 2023 has in store for us all. 

We would like to give a special thank you to the following supporters of our charity…