Ali Abdi, Tim Hartley and Jarred Harvey with the winning ATL team.
The Trust has helped youngsters from Cardiff and the south Wales valleys come together to promote friendship and understanding through football.
We joined the Coalfields Regeneration Trust’s GameON Programme and Dynamic Sports Development to host another highly successful inter-community event for 14-18-year-olds at the House of Sport next to the Cardiff City Stadium.
Targeting Communities First areas, the day brought together teams from Trallwn, Fernhill, Merthyr Tydfil, Mountain Ash and Grangetown.,Butetown and Riverside, all in Cardiff. ATL from Cardiff Bay ran out winners beating Grangetown 1-0 in a tight final. The friendly football tournament also included a workshop on drug and alcohol awareness run by Neno Mendes from the substance misuse organisation, New Link Wales.
This is the second such session the Trust has supported following our May event at Treforest. The football allows 14-18 year olds from different backgrounds and communities to share experiences and cultures and make friends. We are hoping to support a regular GameON league and will support their work with other football trusts across Wales.
Trust chair, Tim Hartley said: “Some of these young people will have rarely ventured either out of the valleys or north of Cardiff. It was great to see them playing and talking together. These sessions are all about football of course but we also want to help them get new skills and make new friends.”
Jarred Harvey from GameON Wales added: “We are encouraging young people from different Communities First areas to develop positive personal experiences. Working together we saw that they can increase interaction and social development through football.”
Ali Abdi from Dynamic Sports Development said: “This event was another big success. We are managing to engage young people of the same age to learn, understand and appreciate similarities and respect differences.”