Oarsome Chance was selected by Sported as one of the twelve case studies to feature in this year’s Times and Sunday Times Christmas appeal.
Oarsome Chance is a member of Sported, the UK’s largest network of community groups supporting 500,000 young people to reach their full potential. Sported’s network consists of 2,600 community sports groups across the UK representing 100 different sports, from parkour to paddle-boarding, boxing to baseball and kabaddi to kayaking. These groups tackle the most serious social issues affecting communities including youth violence, discrimination and poverty.
Patrick Kidd, senior writer at The Times, paid a visit to our Maritime Workshop to see for himself how we are supporting young people. During his visit Patrick and the Times photographer accompanying him, Richard Pohie, met with some of the young people who regularly benefit from our support. They spent several hours chatting with young people and staff and even went out on the water to see some of our young people skiff rowing out on Portsmouth Harbour.
Nicola Walker, CEO of Sported said: “Oarsome Chance is a wonderful example of the way in which sport can be used to engage young people and provide them with routes to more positive futures. There are countless numbers of similar stories across the UK which reflect the critical role sport plays in the lives of young people. Our work at Sported is to ensure that groups like Oarsome Chance can grow their support for young people during these difficult times.”
For a small charity to receive national exposure in this way is fantastic and we have had new supporters reach out to us who read the fantastic article written by Patrick and the amazing photos taken by Richard. Many thanks to Sported for giving us the opportunity to be a part of their campaign adn we hope the Times campaign will reap great rewads for them as a valuable network continuing to make a difference to hundreds of thousands of young people’s lives across the country.
