Grant awarded: £30,000 a year for 3 years: 2020-2023 - unrestricted; Cost of Living uplift grant £5,000
The St. Matthew’s Project provides a safe and encouraging environment where 3-25-year-olds can come together and enjoy structured football sessions and other activities. We help children and young people fulfil their potential and have a real impact on their community.
What began as a kick-about in Brockwell Park is now a thriving youth project, which offers a growing array of programmes and services to over 350 young people each week, bringing them together from 3 different housing estates, which historically would not have anything to do with each other.
Our current activities include:
- weekly turn-up-and-play sessions for both sexes
- a Family Football and Literacy Programme
- estate-based sports sessions
- a Fit for Life programme combining free football with mental health and wellbeing workshops.
- for those aged 16+, we offer free F.A coaching courses, construction work training opportunities and a volunteering programme.
It is part of our ethos to offer those we work with more than just the chance to participate in a football project.
We support young people to make the transition from sports participation to accessing further sporting, educational or employment opportunities as they get older. Through continued engagement we help young people develop their personal skills and strengths and tackle any weaknesses they feel they might have. In this way, we aim to meet the needs of local young people, raise their aspirations and help them steer clear of a life of crime and gang-related activity.
Since we work with young people right up until they are in their mid-twenties, we are also well-placed to offer the those progressing through our programmes an established exit route into further structured and age-appropriate sporting and employment opportunities.
Lee Dema, Project Coordinator, St Matthew's Project
St Matthew's Project's website
I don't know what I'd have done without St Matthew's. I've been involved with other football clubs in the past, but I've dropped out of all of them. Somehow, I've stuck with St Matthew's and it's allowed me to continue doing what I love, even though I've had so many things keeping me away from doing it. I just appreciate all the support. I love the people I've met within St Matthew's. I've got the help I needed. It's just a team-building vibe. And it's lovely to help other people as well. It's a charity full of lovely people. It's a lovely environment to be in. It brings people together and that's really nice. Sabrina, aged 18, St Matthew's Project member