Charlton Athletic are proud to announce Valley of Dreams, a new ground-breaking partnership between business and football with the aim of changing lives for the better across London and the south east of England.
The partnership will be officially launched in the House of Commons on May 23rd and brings together under one banner - ring-fenced from the professional game - the multi-award winning Charlton Athletic Community Trust (CACT), Charlton’s girls’ academy and boys’ academy.
Charlton were recently named the EFL Community Club of the Year with CACT delivering £49.6m in social value, directly having a positive impact of the lives of 25,000 people locally.
CACT deliver more than 65 programmes across the region including an industry-leading equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programme, which has helped Charlton become one of only a handful of clubs to earn the EFL’s newly-introduced EDI Silver award. The club’s boys’ academy recently ranked eighth in the UK, while the girls’ academy is coming off the back of another successful season.
As part of the Valley of Dreams initiative, businesses will be able to support the club’s Grassroots to Excellence scheme, which supports young individuals in maximising their potential not just on the pitch through the club’s successful academies, but also off the pitch helping people into careers in health, education, media, business and construction.
In addition, the Valley of Dreams programmes engage young people who are at risk of becoming involved or are already involved in the criminal justice system. Through the Community Trust’s increased work across risk and violence reduction they have recognised the importance of employing those with lived experience within their delivery team. The individuals’ unique insight places them in the best position to positively affect young people.
Charlton Athletic Board member Paul Elliott CBE MBE said: “The Valley of Dreams initiative will change the lives of young people at risk and the communities in which they live.
“Charlton has a long history in leading the way on a number of very important topics including fighting racism and homophobia in football and Valley of Dreams is the next example of that. We are the leading social purpose club in the country, making a real, tangible impact on people’s lives.
“We want to do so much more to play our part in impacting transformative changes across London and south east England and through the new Valley of Dreams initiative we have such an exciting opportunity to just that.”
To register your interest in being a part of Valley of Dreams, please email website@cafc.co.uk.
