The team at OPS have pledge to run, walk, cycle, 100 kilometres to help raise money for our extended family at Badu Sports and One Community, a community support and engagement hub based in East London catering for the needs of those most exposed in the local area and beyond.
The call was made and the date was set. Tracksuit bottoms, repurposed from loungewear to armour, had the Wotsits dust shaken from them and training began in earnest. Pinot Grigio and chips were sacrificed for coconut water and carrot sticks to please the gym gods. After all, the call had been made and the date had been set. We have officially socially distanced ourselves from the sofa. This. Is. Not. A. Drill.
Badu Sports mission is to engage with and connect the most marginalised of society. To help everyone that they can through sporting activities, mentoring, and continuous support. Over the last ten years, Badu Sports has developed an extensive team of volunteers and trainers from the local community and beyond offering places for children and young people in Easter and summer holiday clubs. The strength of the organisation comes from the fact that the staff have been through the same struggles their members face. Much of the team consist of young people Badu supported as children, that have stayed on become trainers themselves, providing a unique understanding of testing times with lived experiences of the issues faced.
One Community launched in early 2020 to combat the rise of poverty in the local community. It grew exponentially in answer to the advent of COVID-19 and its disproportionate effect on the BAME community. One Community provide direct aid or guidance to assist callers to attain help for themselves. They offer culturally specific and bespoke care packages including growing tips, food packages, cooking advice, activity packs, and clothing to 120 families and 11 schools across Hornsey, Hackney, Newham, Ilford, and Redbridge. One Community always strive to give everyone who needs help the time to speak, a choice of action, then the best of everything they need.
The last three years has seen Badu Sports birth and develop Badu Community from the growing need to do more. To do more for those with less ability to do for themselves. To do more for those left behind due to no fault of their own. To do more for anyone strong enough to pick up the phone and ask for help. The team build relationships and provide valuable space for young people and their families to communicate, share, and develop through a mentoring group and community events.
Yasmin, Jan and Millie have been volunteering at the Badu food bank every Thursday for the past few months, packing boxes and mucking in at the distribution centre at the Olympic Park. Sadly stocks are starting to dwindle and as people slowly head back to the their normal lives, the early mutual aid and generosity of the masses has started to dwindle. So, we are doing this 100k to fundraise for the One Community project and to ensure they can continue with their food delivery support at least until schools reopen fully and hopefully the need for food parcels can be reduced in the post Covid world!