Allwyn, the UK identity of the Czech Republic’s SAZKA Group, has announced it is launching a new campaign to improve funding and awareness for grassroots sports alongside the charity Made By Sport.
The campaign, named #PoweringGoodTogether, is designed to recognise sports good from ‘helping address mental health issues, to developing life skills or bridging divides’.
The two organisations are trying to encourage more young people to participate in sport to combat mental and physical issues that have arisen from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research concluded that ‘more than a third of young people aged 15-18 suffer from mental health disorders, with 83% saying that the pandemic had affected their mental health, reporting issues with sleep, panic attacks and urges to self-harm during the periods of lockdown’.
The #PowerGoodTogether campaign will attempt to raise awareness around those issues as well as persuading people to think about the positive impacts that sport can have in combating those issues.
Sophie Mason, CEO of Made by Sport commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with Allwyn to deliver the #PoweringGoodTogether campaign, which will shine a light on the invaluable contribution community clubs play in society through the use of sport, and show how young people can achieve better futures through involvement in grassroots sport by learning important life skills, improving their physical and mental health, as well as reducing anti-social activity.”
Allwyn is launching the campaign at a time where it is bidding in the Fourth National Lottery License competition against current tender holders Camelot, Italy’s Sisal and India’s Sugal & Damani.
Allwyn’s Bid Chair and former Deputy Chairman of the Organising Committee for London 2012, Sir Keith Mills, added: “Sport can help us to achieve so many things in life and at a time when we are all trying to work out our ‘new normal,’ sport can present us with a solution to help steer us all through, individually and as a society.
“We need to look at sport in a different way – it’s not just about activity and keeping fit – and that’s why we are supporting Made by Sport.”
