Leading the field in Community programmes
Fulham Football Club Foundation continues to go from strength to strength and remains committed to building on the great work it carries out within the nine London and Surrey boroughs it covers.
The Club has been operating a community division for nearly 20 years and was officially awarded charitable status in 2005, with an official launch at the House of Commons the following year.
Fulham Football Club Foundation, which employs more than 30 permanent and 100 sessional staff at its Motspur Park office, achieved over 220,000 participation opportunities working with more than 37,000 young people during the last year.
The Foundation’s mission of ‘building better lives through sport’ is consistently achieved through a number of projects, resulting in increased participation in high quality sport, an improvement in health and well-being which, in turn, contributes to a reduction in youth crime and anti-social behaviour.
Fulham Football Club Foundation delivers inspirational initiatives and projects which have a positive influence on the communities in which they operate. With the support of various members of Martin Jol’s squad, the impact of the Foundation’s work cannot be underestimated.
For the 2009/10 season a Players Ambassador approach was introduced to help enhance the value that players could add to the Foundations great work. The aim of this was to identify four first team players for four key areas of community work and use them as the ambassadors to support and add value to the programmes. This approach allowed the four players to be linked to a specific theme of work (education, health, enterprise, and cultural awareness). Ambassadorial roles have been taken on by Brede Hangeland and Mark Schwarzer.
In 2010 the Foundation’s hard work has thrived through a variety of worthwhile projects and initiatives. The groundbreaking Enterprise project was launched in December 2009 as London’s first accredited football business enterprise project, using Fulham FC to inspire and motivate young people about the challenging world of business.
Throughout 2009-10 Fulham Football Club Foundation continued to make enormous strides in the area of disability sports with another ‘first’ for Down’s syndrome football in May 2010.
The Fulham Badgers, thanks to generous donations from family, friends, businesses, work colleagues and Fulham supporters, embarked on a five-day trip to Hong Kong to play in a football tournament against two of Hong Kong’s Down’s syndrome teams. £60,000 was raised and this allowed for the team which comprised of fourteen players and their parents to experience a once in a lifetime trip.
During their stay, the team trained to prepare for the tournament as well as taking time out for sightseeing excursions, organised visits to educational centres for young people with learning disabilities and functions hosted by both the Foundation and UK & Hong Kong Down’s Syndrome Association.
The Foundation continue to run seven Kickz projects across four London Boroughs which so far has seen them interacting with over 2,000 young people. The objective of the national initiative aimed at those at the most risk of anti-social behaviour, is to use football to engage young people to create safer, stronger and more respectful communities. In 2010, two Kickz projects received commendations for their positive impact on local communities. The Kickz Central MET Police Team for London, and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham both publically recognised all the hard work that has gone into Kickz Merton and Kickz Fulham and the quality of both programmes.
The academic year of 2009-10 saw the Foundation’s schools programme continue to grow across its six School Sports Partnerships: Hammersmith and Fulham, Merton, Kingston, North Surrey, East Surrey and Lambeth, engaging more than 18,000 young people in a wide range of activities. Programmes include out of school hours learning (OSHL) at over 150 schools, 70 hours per week of National Curriculum based PE lessons, Multi Skills projects and Key Stage 1 teacher training programmes which run in 30 of Hammersmith and Fulham’s Primary Schools.
Read the 2008/09 Annual Report|