We are grateful to our neighbours at Battersea Place who have been fundraising for us all year. This was demonstrated by the art and photography exhibition we put on together, featuring some amazing pieces of work. It was a great event, and we were proud of all our volunteers on the day.
Over the 6 weeks holidays we have been running extra sessions and will be running 2 weeklong boot camps. One is the Boxer’s Toolkit (females only), which was developed by our lead coach, Giz. It is a program that teaches transferrable skills, through the medium of boxing. It has already been tried and tested with schools, including two Pupil Referral Units and this Summer we are focusing it on our female participants. The other was the Week of the Warrior, where we run a weeklong program that involves a variety of sport and martial arts.
Whilst we have the holiday programs on, we are still running our core sessions at the usual times. Including boxing, youth club, fit and fed (which featured some brilliant baking by some of our participants and COO Hannah) and the bike workshop.
Unfortunately, England has recently seen a number of riots, which fortunately were not able to spread to London. Carney’s response to the riots can be seen in this post:
We were incredibly proud of our participant, Cyprian, who was chosen to perform the coin toss at the Wimbledon Tennis Gentlemen’s Singles Final on Centre Court representing Carney’s Community.
George Turner, co-founder of Carney’s Community, said: “When we were given the opportunity, Cyprian was one of the first people we thought of. He’s someone who has come from an incredibly difficult background and has had so many struggles that he’s had to face. Over the last couple of years, he’s just done so well. He’s gone from someone who we were putting a lot of effort into supporting to someone who’s putting that effort and support into helping other people.”
Wimbledon foundation (who have supported Carney’s since they were first founded) treated Cyprian and his guests like royalty and it was an amazing experience.
We have to recognise the achievements of one of our participants, Marcus, who first came to us in 2015, shortly after severing his spinal cord in a motorbike accident. Fast forward to today and Marcus has progressed from boxing training, becoming a personal trainer, supporting others with disabilities, to now representing Great Britain in the Paralympics 2024. Everyone at Carney’s wishes him the best of luck, we will all be cheering him on.
Our coaches had a great time at the Get Set Go event, set up to help those with Special Educational Needs and disabilities prepare for adulthood and engage in positive activities. We attend each year and put the young people through their paces with free boxing sessions.
Well done to our participants who boxed competitively, representing our partner club, Fitzroy Lodge ABC. In particular Ibz, Rommel and Mo who all got wins.
Several of our coaches and volunteers supported the annual Big Play Out, coordinated by Battersea Summer Scheme. We delivered free boxing sessions from 11-4pm from the 29th of July – 4th August. One of the highlights was putting Harry and Jamie Redknapp through their paces.
Huge thankyou to our volunteers, Nick and Pim, who both built and then filled our outdoor flower boxes, which have helped brighten up the outside of the centre, and which we are hoping will encourage some of our participants to become more green fingered.
We have been re-commissioned to run the Local Authority led, Turnaround program, for another year due to our successful engagement with a number of young referrals who may have otherwise entered the criminal justice system. Between Carney’s and Regenerate, Roehampton, we hope to positively engage a further 40 participants over the coming year with a focus on improving their education, employment prospects and wellbeing.
To everyone who donated and shared our Big Give Campaign, thank you. Our target was the biggest we have ever had and yet with your support we did it! We raised a total of £35,322.50 (including gift aid)!
Your support will mean that young people, many of whom have faced huge challenges growing up, will be given the support of a key worker who will work alongside them to help them achieve their goals. For our young people this may mean getting into work or education or to get to a good place with their mental and physical health. Because of your donations we can see transformative change in the lives of our young people.
