2025 Sported Award Winners
- Unsung Hero of the Year – Daniel Sukula, Be The Change
- Commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion – Dundee Dragons Wheelchair Sports Club
- Commitment to Sustainability – Brighter Futures
- Campaign or Initiative of the Year – Nurturing Foundations
- Outstanding Collaboration & Partnerships Award – Shanklin VYCC/Shanklin FC
- Contribution to Enhance Community Safety Award – Mile End Community Project
- Sported Project of the Year – Sports Fun 4 All
- Best Place to Volunteer – Rathgael Gymnastics and Tumbling Club
2025 Vanessa Brown Awards for Volunteering
- Big Impact – Ravi Vedi
- Celebrating Diversity – Neil Brimer
- Sported Champion – Neil Yeomans
- Vanessa Brown Award for Outstanding Achievement – Simon Gledhill
Sported honoured those involved in using sport and other activities to address social issues at its 2025 Awards in London.
Winners from around the UK illustrated the capacity of community-based organisations to address issues such as inequalities, disability inclusion, neighbourhood safety and sustainability, as well as providing vibrant spaces and opportunities to acquire life skills.
The Sported Awards – held in London on Wednesday 11 June at the headquarters of our partners, Barclays – highlighted the vital role that local groups hold in transforming lives and strengthening communities.
Among the winners were Nurturing Foundations and Daniel Sukula of Be The Change Youth Project, who went home with Campaign of the Year and the Unsung Hero of the Year awards respectively.
They beat nominees from across the nation-wide network of 5,000 Sported groups and clubs to take home the awards, which were hosted by TV presenter and Sported trustee Jill Douglas.
The Healthy Hearts Programme by Nurturing Foundations is a culturally grounded, community-led health and wellbeing initiative tackling deep-rooted health inequalities in Manchester’s racially minoritised communities.
At the centre of the programme is Afrofit. Created in response to the persistent health challenges faced by Black, African, Caribbean, and other racially minoritised groups, it is a high-energy, culturally affirming fitness programme that is transforming how underrepresented communities engage with physical activity.
Sukula was awarded Unsung Hero of the Year because of his relentless dedication, compassion, and transformational impact on young people across Bolton and Greater Manchester that has seen him become a trusted figure within his community.
Under his leadership, Be The Change has won multiple awards including the Best Youth Led Organisation at the UK Business Awards and Charity of the Year.
Sukula said: “Be The Change is a youth project based in Bolton, working with disadvantaged young people from the community. We provide a lot of services, and sports is one of the key things.
“We provide quite a lot of services and most recently started running a mentoring service for the young people.
“It’s so necessary to have safe places for young people. It’s so important. There’s a lot of challenges like funding. A lot of our team is volunteers, so that’s a big challenge.
“Sported has been there from the beginning. Any time we need advice we know we can rely on Sported and they provide all the support that we need.”
Among the winners were Brighter Futures, who went home with Commitment to Sustainability Award, beating nominees from across the nation-wide network of 5,000 Sported groups and clubs.
Through a combination of green energy solutions, eco-friendly community engagement, and sustainable food practices, the charity demonstrates a commitment to environmental stewardship that benefits both people and the planet.
By engaging in litter picks, the charity promotes cleaner streets and helps tackle pollution in local neighbourhoods. Additionally, educational sessions for children introduce the importance of biodiversity and sustainable living, as they plant seeds and learn about the life cycle of fruits and vegetables.
Ken Lewis, Brighter Futures, said: “We provide a safe space for men, women and children. I’m very keen on the children and the community. If you build the children up and give them hope, give them a chance to develop, then that’s the way forward. To me, the most important thing is the children developing because they haven’t got anywhere else to go most of the time.”
Sports Fun 4 All won the Project of the Year Award for their free football sessions where they experienced remarkable growth from last year, starting five new sessions in 2024 with more to come in 2025.
They deliver year-round provision, currently offering 17 free sessions per week at 13 venues in five London boroughs – Bromley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark.
So far in 2025 they’ve already engaged around 850 young people, with 300 of them being new this year. 70% of their participants live in social housing and 50% receive free school meals.
Kieron Connelly, Sports Fun 4 All, said of adding the Sported award to their list of accolades: “To have been recognised by two national organisations and the county sport partnership for London is massive for us.
“The first five years of Sports Fun 4 All it was just me and one volunteer coach, and we delivered two sessions a week. I couldn’t do this without all the coaches who work for me.
“We’re engaging maybe 100 young people tonight. Those 100 young people wouldn’t be playing football tonight because those venues cost £50-100 an hour to hire. How is a young person from social housing going to hire that pitch?”
Bangor-based Rathgael Gymnastics and Tumbling Club went home with the award for Best Place to Volunteer.
The club offers supportive and empowering environment for volunteers of all ages, making it a truly exceptional place to give back, grow, and make a difference.
A standout part of their volunteer support is their focus on developing young leaders. They actively encourage older gymnasts to take part in volunteering from a young age, where they gain essential life skills including discipline, time management, teamwork, leadership, and communication.
These young volunteers are assigned a mentor with extensive experience who is personally invested in their development. This one-on-one support ensures that every volunteer is guided, nurtured, and continually challenged to grow in confidence and competence.
Jessica Coetzee said: “We’ve got all different types of people coming through our doors and we really want to be able to accommodate them.
“Getting in contact with Sported, they’ve now helped us through different ways of funding, putting us out there, and giving us mentors so that now we can give those ids they deserve.
“We feel very honoured and very thankful to be recognised and this one’s for the kids, so can’t wait to take it back to them and have a little party in the gym.”
Among the four volunteers recognised for their work, the award for Sported Champion went to Neil Yeomans who has volunteered with Sported for over five years.
In that time he has worked with a variety of sports groups to help with business and strategic planning, financial management and governance, and for funding applications.
The chief executive of Sported, Sarah Kaye, called for greater support of grassroots sport, insisting the list of winners are just the tip of the iceberg in underlining the immense contribution of the sector.
“Clubs up and down the country are producing astonishing impacts on their local communities and the Sported Awards throws a spotlight on how they make a difference to so many with their work,” she said.
“However, we know that the vast majority of this is done by volunteers and that not enough funding is being made available to support them in what they do, let alone help them to invest further into the lives of people in their villages, towns and cities.
“Without proper funding these community lynchpins are at risk. However there is an immense opportunity for government and private sector partners to invest into what they accomplish and unleash the power of these local heroes to achieve even more.”
