Bloomsbury Football Foundation: Using Sport to Support London’s Underserved Youth

April 6, 2023 

In celebration of today’s International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP), we are honored to introduce our inaugural Sport Together Fund delivered by Beyond Sport beneficiaries. With an initial focus on promoting “Leadership Together,” the seven recipients are providing sports-based leadership training opportunities for refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable communities that promote well-being and inclusivity. 

Founded in 2018, Bloomsbury Football is one of the largest providers of free-to-access football in Central London. Initially created to address the rising cost of sports programs for children in the capital, it believes that every child should experience the benefits of sport regardless of socioeconomic, ethnic or national background. Out of the approximately 4000 young people it serves, 55% are from ethnic minority backgrounds, over a third receive free school meals and 20% are girls. The organization is in the “business of breaking down barriers” and therefore focuses its efforts on inclusion and accessibility.

Refugees in the UK 

According to UNHCR statistics, as of November 2022, there were 231,597 refugees, 127,421 pending asylum cases and 5,483 stateless persons in the UK. The war in Ukraine drove a large increase from the previous year. An estimated 9,000 Afghan and 16,000 Ukrainian refugees are living in temporary housing in the country. 

In response, Bloomsbury started running weekly sessions for the growing community of young people from refugee and asylum-seeking families in London. Following a 2022 summer pilot project, it found that one of the main barriers to newcomers being able to settle into their new communities was social isolation, exacerbated by mental and physical health issues, insufficient language skills and low confidence.

Bloomsbury’s Refugee Program, therefore, provides free football sessions and tailored mental, linguistic and social support for 11–16-year-old Ukrainians and Afghans to “mitigate the suffering caused by alarming rates of social exclusion, marginalization and institutionalization among young refugees.” This year, Bloomsbury doubled the scale of its program to include four weekly sessions as well as free support for participants' parents and caregivers. It also started a weekly session open to people from any background. 

“Often the refugees are in housing that doesn’t facilitate social mixing between other refugees let alone with non-refugees,” said Jamie Chalmers, Head of Impact and founder of Bloomsbury’s Refugee Programme. “Our sessions really give them a social platform to help them build themselves up socially and also ideally to eventually integrate into our mainstream programs, meaning they’d meet people outside of their circle who aren’t refugees themselves, therefore, broadening their social horizons.” 

The Foundation is using its Sport Together Fund (STF) grant to upskill its coaches – the majority of whom are under the age of 23 – through mental health and trauma-informed courses and workshops that will allow them to better support the needs of refugee and asylum-seeking youth. This includes employing an expert educator experienced in providing mental health, language skills, practical day-to-day life guidance, citizenship skills and integration advice for refugees.

Starting April 10, the Foundation will also offer places in the leadership courses to 18–25-year-old refugees from the communities which its Refugee Program supports. Older refugees are often unable to attend school and lack the language and employment skills required to find a full-time job. These leadership sessions offer transferable skills to help them secure employment. It will also put them on the path to qualifying to be an assistant coach with the potential to be recruited by Bloomsbury Football for those who are interested. A fourth session is in the works with plans for more to come.

“Football is a universal language. It provides a vehicle through which young people can establish a social network, improve their language skills and encounter positive role models from their new community. In short, it is a way for them to set down some roots and to begin to feel at home. Our hope for our Refugee Programme is that it will ease a transition process which can, at its worst, be deeply traumatic for vulnerable young people,” said Chalmers. 

Beyond Sport launched the Sport Together Fund in 2022 to provide grants and capacity-building support to non-profit organizations, sports clubs and collectives who are assisting communities facing conflict, displacement, human rights violations and climate change disasters through sport. The Fund also supports the transit and host communities where people are rebuilding their lives. 

Learn more about all our Sport Together Fund Grantee Partners HERE.