Local youngsters attending Charlton Athletic Community Trust (CACT) Summer Holiday football courses took away a unique award from players Morgan Fox and Ezri Konsa.
Young players received rainbow coloured laces as part of an initiative by the charity Stonewall to promote equality in sports and tackle discrimination.
Charlton academy products Fox and Konsa visited the course at the CAFC Training Ground in Sparrows Lane last Thursday.
Addicks left back Morgan Fox said, “It’s always great to meet enthusiastic young footballers”.
“I hope they have been inspired as well as educated about the variety of challenges we all can face on the sports field.
“Rainbow Laces is a great campaign and I’m proud to support it along with my teammates and Charlton Athletic Community Trust.”
The campaign has also been supported by housing association L&Q, who purchased thousands of the laces to be given out to young people at One Goal courses across London.
Matthew Corbett, L&Q’s Assistant Director for Community Investment, said: “We’re glad L&Q have helped support this fantastic campaign. It’s great that we can use sport to positive life skills and well-being with this simple campaign.
Juliet Chard, Campaigns Officer at Stonewall said: “We still live in a world where so many young lesbian, gay, bi and trans people face discrimination in sport – and it’s vital that we work together to kick this out and promote inclusiveness.
It’s fantastic to see groups like Charlton Athletic Community Trust, and players like Fox and Konsa, stand by the side of all young people interested in sport and support our vision of a world where all LGBT folk are accepted without exception.”
CACT’s support of the Rainbow Laces campaign is part of a range of activities and programmes designed to promote equality and tackle discrimination, including issues relating to identity, gender and prejudice.
On May 22nd of this year, CACT hosted the ‘Charlton v Homophobia’ friendly tournament in partnership with the University of Greenwich, the Metro Centre, Kick it Out, Fans for Diversity and Football v Homophobia.
Dr Michael Seeraj, Head of Equality and Diversity at CACT said: “We’re fully committed to tackling all forms of discrimination, including homophobia, both on and off the pitch”.
“We’ve found that Rainbow Laces are a simple yet powerful way to highlight this issue and we’ll continue to use them as we continue our equalities work.”
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For more information about CACT's Equality & Diversity work, click here >>>