Sport's social impact can be 'immense' - Notts youth charity wins SJA Award

Support Through Sport has been named as winner of the 2025 Sport for Change Award, announced live on Sky Sports News.

The award, which is part of the Sports Journalists’ Association’s wider 2025 British Sports Awards, has been supported by ConnectSport CIC since 2018. Each year it aims to recognise and reward charities and community organisations working to address a wide range of important social, environmental and economic issues such as crime and unemployment, physical and mental health and wellbeing, climate change, and social inequality and discrimination.

SUCCESSFUL

As he announced the award live on Sky Sports News, SJA president Darren Lewis reflected how sport should “not just be about success in terms of silverware” but also “a driver for change and to help everyone make their lives more successful”. He added: “This award celebrates the vital work of charities and grassroots organisations across the UK that use sport or physical activity to create positive change in their communities.”

Also shortlisted for the award were the Single Homeless Project, and the ‘Love to Move’ programme from the British Gymnastics Foundation.

ConnectSport is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company which partners with UK Universities to raise awareness and increase investment for local charities and sport for development organisations, which are collectively contributing to globally-recognised Sustainable Development Goals and need more support.

The judging panel for the award based their decision on a series of criteria including impact and reach, scale and difficulty of the issue being tackled, longevity and sustainability of the project, innovation and collaboration. Darren said Nottinghamshire-based Support Through Sport earned the award for its “impressive” work in tackling key issues such as serious youth violence and anti-social behaviour. Over 5,000 young people have been supported to date, with more than 6,000 hours of mentoring delivered and over half of participants coming from global majority backgrounds.

Receiving the award CEO Tranai Todd, who set up the charity when he was only 17 years old, commented: “Support for Sport is an organisation that works at the intersection of sport and youth work. We combine those two things to create safe spaces for young people within disadvantaged communities, with the aim of engaging them, empowering them, and eradicating negative influences which are prevalent within those communities, so things like knife crime, gang violence and social behaviour and youth funding.”

POWERFUL

Tranai revealed: “I set up Support Through Sport off the back of (my own) lived experiences. As a young person, growing up in an inner-city, disadvantaged area of Nottingham, sport was a really powerful hook for me to get involved in something positive and to divert me away from some of those negative influences which young people experience in lots of different ways.

“It was about something that I could get involved in, to feel that sense of purpose and belonging, and realising the potential that sport has in changing young people's lives. When you couple that with youth work, it can have immense potential in diverting young people away from some of those things.”

Tranai was speaking from one of the sport-based intervention sessions that Support Through Sport stage across Nottingham.

He explained: “We have several of these sessions operating across the city, the county and further afield. The aim is to provide a safe space and a welcoming space for young people. It’s to provide role models, leaders and mentors to help to guide these young people onto a positive track and to help them with any of the issues and complexities that they might be navigating as young people as well.

“It's about providing them with positive alternatives to some of those negative experiences that they can have in disadvantaged and under-served communities.”

Tranai told Sky Sports News: “It means a lot to win the SJA Sport for Change Award to me personally, but also to the organisation.

COMMITMENT

“I definitely attribute the award to our amazing team at Support Through Sport, to all of our coaches, mentors, leaders and managers, and all of the hard work and commitment that they give to our mission of engaging and empowering young people and eradicating those negative influences.

“It means a lot to have that recognition as a charity, but also so that all of the staff feel that they are contributing to making a difference and harnessing the power of sport. It's immense the impact that it can have on a human being.”

Watch the Award presentation on Sky Sports News