Our sessions cater to all children: we have a genuinely diverse group of participants. We bring together children from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities and nationalities – and, in doing so, we facilitate friendships across these societal divides. In the context of an increasingly segregated society, these lasting relationships are an invaluable tool in strengthening social unity among local communities.
Football should never be a luxury reserved for a privileged elite. At Bloomsbury, all children – regardless of background – get the chance to experience professional-standard football coaching in state-of-the-art facilities. Our programmes are either free–to–access or subject to extensive financial support schemes, meaning every child (regardless of their family circumstances) can enjoy the wide-ranging benefits of regular football.
At Bloomsbury, the mental and physical wellbeing of young people is our foremost priority. Low levels of sporting participation have led to a sharp rise in inactivity-related health conditions, notably obesity. This problem has been exacerbated by a lack of proper facilities, limited funding for team sport, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Similarly concerning has been the rise in psychological morbidities among children since the onset of social distancing measures. Our sessions seek to mitigate these damaging trends by providing the psychological and physical benefits of regular sporting participation to as many children as possible.
The pursuit of sporting excellence is at the heart of everything we do. The standard of football training provided by our FA-certified coaches is second to none, allowing all children to reach their full sporting potential. Whether kicking a ball for the first time, improving their football in a casual setting, or working toward signing for a Premier League club, we offer the support our young participants need to achieve their goals.
We don’t have a motto, and we don’t especially want one – but if we did, ‘football for all’ wouldn’t be a bad place to start. We work with local schools, councils, and community groups to ensure that no child is ever denied the wide-ranging benefits of regular football due to something as arbitrary as their personal circumstances. Our services are either free-to-access, or heavily subsidized by our bursary and scholarship scheme. Families who can’t pay, don’t – and their children receive exactly the same high-quality service as those who can. We reach approximately 5,000 children each year, and make an active effort to engage those communities who are most likely to have limited access to sporting opportunities: 55% of our participants are from BAME backgrounds, 33% receive free school meals, and 20% are girls.
Modern society contains a cruel irony: sporting participation – which is widely recognized as a route out of poverty – is lowest among poverty-stricken communities. Given that 68% of our beneficiaries are from Camden, 8% from Westminster and 8% from Islington – boroughs with respective child poverty rates of 32%, 41% and 43% – Bloomsbury is uniquely well-placed to improve opportunities for lower income children.
Equalizing access to regular football training is a public health imperative. The children of London are presently in the grip of a lifestyle-related health crisis: over 50% of UK children are failing to meet the recommended threshold of one hour of physical activity today, and 21% of children aged 10-11 are obese. This epidemic of inactivity among young people – and the attendant dangers to children’s health – is even more acute among the groups which Bloomsbury exists to serve: BAME children, lower-income kids, and girls. In offering high-quality sports coaching to all – with a particular focus on these more at-risk groups – we are working to improve the physical wellbeing of children from all backgrounds and circumstances.
At Bloomsbury, we are also looking to mitigate the mental health issues which have become endemic among London’s children since the first national lockdown. Children’s social natures makes them ill-suited to isolation, and this fact – coupled with the fact that children’s quarantine spaces were often cramped and crowded – meant that adhering to social distancing came at a heavy psychological price for the children of London. By exploiting the long-established link between exercise and positive mental health outcomes, we seek to improve the psychological well-being of our beneficiaries: in fact, our surveys suggest that 95% of Bloomsbury participants feel happier after engaging with us.
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