Charlton Athletic is pleased to introduce Valley of Dreams, a new groundbreaking cooperation between business and football aimed at improving lives in London and the south east of England.
The alliance, which will be officially announced in the House of Commons on May 23rd, brings together the multi-award-winning Charlton Athletic Community Trust (CACT), Charlton’s girls’ and boys’ academies under a single banner that is separate from the professional game.
Charlton was recently voted the EFL Community Club of the Year, with CACT generating £49.6 million in social value and directly improving the lives of 25,000 locals.
CACT runs over 65 projects across the region, including an industry-leading equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) programme that has helped Charlton become one of only a few clubs to receive the EFL’s newly launched EDI Silver accreditation. The club’s boys’ academy recently ranked seventh in the UK, and the girls’ academy is coming off another strong season.
Businesses will be able to support the club’s Grassroots to Excellence scheme as part of the Valley of Dreams initiative, which helps young people achieve their full potential not only on the pitch through the club’s successful academies, but also off the pitch by guiding them into careers in health, education, media, business, and construction.
Furthermore, the Valley of Dreams programmes engage young people who are at risk of becoming or are already entangled in the criminal justice system. The Community Trust’s growing work in risk and violence reduction has highlighted the need of recruiting people with lived experience on its delivery teams. The individuals’ unique insights put them in the best position to positively impact young people.
Paul Elliott CBE MBE, a member of the Charlton Athletic Board, stated that the Valley of Dreams initiative will transform the lives of at-risk youth and the communities where they live.
“Charlton has a long history of setting the standard on a variety of critical issues, including combating racism and homophobia in football, and Valley of Dreams is the latest illustration of that. We are the country’s foremost social purpose club, with a real, measurable influence 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.”
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