The Kent Refugee Action Network applied to Kent Community Foundation for support to offer young people a way to develop links and connections with the local community through sports activities.
Before Covid, sports activities offered a positive way for young refugee and asylum seekers to engage with their peers, build trust with the Kent Refugee Action Network staff and improve their wellbeing and promote a healthy lifestyle.
However, during Covid, digital poverty and limited opportunities to engage in outdoor activities left the young people who are supported by the Kent Refugee Action Network particularly disadvantaged and vulnerable.
Most of the young people feel excluded from the local community with limited support networks as they do not have families in the UK and have inadequate opportunities to interact and develop local networks. Fun activities such as sports is a good way to bridge the divide between them and young people in the local community.
Josephine McCartney, Chief Executive, Kent Community Foundation, said, “Young refugee and asylum seekers have had very traumatic experiences in their young lives and as a result are usually very isolated. The application for funding explained that weekly sports sessions would improve the mental health and wellbeing of these young people and help forge links with other young people in the local community. Kent Community Foundation was delighted to grant the Kent Refugee Action Network £4,500 towards a range of weekly sport sessions in the Ashford area.”
Dr Razia Shariff, CEO Kent Refugee Action Network, said, “The Kent Refugee Action Network has over eighteen years’ experience working with young refugees and asylum seekers and on average work with over four hundred young people a year. We have successfully been running a Sports, Activities and Wellbeing Advocacy project in Canterbury and Folkestone and we wanted to extend this initiative to the Ashford area. For new arrivals, sports activities are a great way to engage and help them to develop friendships and connections in the local community and we are very grateful for Kent Community Foundation’s support.”
To contact Kent Community Foundation call, 01303 814500 or visit www.kentcf.org.uk/funding
About the Kent Refugee Action Network
The Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN) was established in 2003 to support young refugees and asylum seekers who are striving to live fulfilled, independent, and successful lives in the community.
About Kent Community Foundation
Grant-maker Kent Community Foundation has been finding, funding, and supporting some of the smallest voluntary organisations in the county for twenty years. In this time, it has distributed over £45 million to support thousands of small charities and deserving causes where a modest sum of money can make a significant impact.
They are part of a UK wide accredited network of forty-seven Community Foundations who are committed to improving the lives of local people and communities, particularly the most vulnerable, isolated, and disadvantaged by matching those who want to help, with those who need the help.
Responsible for more than eighty philanthropic funds, Kent Community Foundation is unrivalled in its knowledge of local causes and assists individuals, families, and businesses, who want to help, to establish and administer their own charitable funds.
