The Sport for Development Coalition has launched a new initiative called ‘Adapt, Support, Respond’ aimed at demonstrating how organisations across the network have adapted their services to continue supporting individuals and communities in need during lockdown.

The initiative will also showcase how sport for development organisations, which range from club foundations and governing bodies to charities and community groups, are getting ready to play their part in the nation’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Adapt, Support, Respond will showcase the response of sport for development to the third lockdown, and the pandemic in general, by some of the 160-plus organisations within the Coalition, who have all signed up to its Charter and are intentionally using sport to generate positive social outcomes such as physical and mental wellbeing, reducing unemployment and anti-social behaviour, and increasing community cohesion.  

Ollie Dudfield, Executive Director of the Sport for Development Coalition, said: “'Adapt, Support, Respond' will collate learning and evidence from across the sector on how the network is adapting in order to maximise its contribution to community resilience and wellbeing over the coming months. The need for all areas of the community to support resilience and wellbeing over the coming months will be critical as the wider social and economic impacts of the pandemic intensify.”

Read this blog on the thinking behind Adapt, Support, Respond from Ollie and the management team at the Coalition, which includes ConnectSport founder Simon Lansley.

Some of the first blogs published as part of the initiative include:

   - Boxing Futures which uses sport and informal learning to support vulnerable young people.

   - Mini Mermaid Running Club (pictured above) which provides physical activity and wellbeing programmes for young people, including girls aged seven to 11.

   - Sport 4 Life UK which works with young people not in employment, education or training across the West Midlands.

More blogs and articles will follow. Look out for the hashtag #AdaptSupportRespond on social media.

To hear the Coalition talk about sport for development’s role in the pandemic, and recovery from it, on BBC Radio 5 Live, click here. The national broadcaster also dedicated a Sunday breakfast show to the work of Coalition supporters, with School of Hard Knocks, Peace Players and Street League being interviewed live on air.

To sign up to the Sport for Development Coalition’s Charter, click here. To add your blog or article to the Adapt, Support, Respond initiative, contact slansley@sportfordevelopmentcoalition.org.