My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
Yes
I am 18 years of age or above, by the application deadline.
Yes
My organisation is a registered UK entity and has a London-based address.
Yes
My organisation is a non-profit (e.g. school, university, or local authority) — not a for-profit, which can only join as a partner.
Yes
If there is a for-profit organisation as a partner in my initiative, they work on a cost-recovery basis only.
Yes
My solution is implemented at scale, or if not, I have a clear business plan, a minimum viable solution (prototype, pilot, or proof of concept), evidence of access to a lease for the space you are leveraging, and evidence of work or impact in London within your coalition.
Yes
I am aware that, if I am submitting more than one application to a Challenge run by Ashoka and Go! London, only one of them is able to progress through the stages.
Yes
Are you an employee (and their children and grandchildren) of Ashoka or any of its respective affiliates and participating advertising and promotion agencies?
No
I have read and accepted the Challenge Terms & Conditions.
Yes
First Name
Natalie
Last Name
White
Pronouns
She/Her
Email address
I would like to receive notifications and updates about Go London!, Ashoka, Ashoka Changemakers, and other Ashoka opportunities.
1
Are you an Ashoka Fellow?
No
Are you applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow?
No
If you are applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow, please specify the name and organisation of the fellow below.
City St Georges, University Of London
Lead Organisation Name
City St George's, University Of London
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
2026
Initiative Title
Active Aspirations; Creating Access through Non-Traditional Delivery
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
Instagram - citysportec1 website - www.citysport.org.uk
Initiative Stage
Pilot-Stage (The first activities have happened, and you have proof of concept)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Health & Fitness
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
A focus on sport in non-sporty spaces/not previously accessible places, targeting our local youth, in partnership with local community organisations and our widening participation partnership.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve and who will benefit the most from your solution? How close are you to the problem and/or community impacted?
Young people in Islington face major barriers to improving their physical and mental health due to limited income, opportunity, and accessible facilities. City St George’s University (CSG) and CitySport currently offer no dedicated time, space, or trained DBS‑checked staff for local youth, despite having facilities that could support safe, structured physical activity. Most of CitySport space is prioritised for BUCS teams or external bookings, leaving no provision for community use. Islington is one of the six most deprived London boroughs, with 38% of children living in poverty and only 13% public green space, the lowest per person in the UK. Activity levels are low: 45% of children do not meet the recommended 60 minutes of daily exercise, with a gender gap of 51% of boys vs 43% of girls. Rising living costs have increased isolation and reduced access to safe play spaces. Early participation in sport improves physical health, mental wellbeing, confidence, resilience, and academic performance. National data shows childhood mental health and obesity issues rising from 1 in 9 to 1 in 6, with activity levels dropping further in secondary school—highlighting the need for early intervention. CSG’s Widening Participation (WP) team already works with local schools but currently offers no physical activity provision. CitySport can fill this gap by collaborating on workshops, summer camps, and community sessions. Partnerships with groups such as The Peel, St Luke’s Community Centre, and City & Islington College show that positive engagement through sport can support educational outcomes and provide vital opportunities for underrepresented youth.
Your approach: How are you/ will you addressing the problem outlined above? How does your solution unlock or reimagine access to spaces for sport and physical activity? What role do landowners, local authorities, or other decision-making stakeholders play in your approach? We'd love to know about the origin of your idea, and what was your "aha" moment" that led you to take action?
- Provide access to non‑traditional, low‑barrier sports that young people rarely experience. - Bring sport into non‑sport spaces (e.g., teaching rooms) and open CitySport facilities to Islington youth. Two core projects - Campus‑based sport sessions Delivered with the WP team in teaching rooms using safe, adaptable equipment such as plastic fencing, suction‑cup archery, curling, short tennis, and pop‑up badminton. - Multi‑sport holiday camps Offering activities suitable for younger children, including portable basketball, indoor hockey, dodgeball, jazzminton, and quick cricket. CitySport values community and opportunity. While our primary focus is students, we aim to expand our impact by offering safe, low‑cost physical activity for local young people. Through the WP team, we have direct access to children from deprived backgrounds, including those on free school meals, giving us a unique opportunity to make a meaningful difference. Over the past two years, with a strong membership base and stable operations, we’ve reached an “aha” moment: it’s time to give back to our local community. Collaboration with the council, schools, and community groups will be essential. Sessions will be led by student activators, creating employment opportunities, and supported by our sports clubs and qualified coaching staff (fencing, karate, cricket, football). A pilot with 'The Peel' highlighted the need for adaptable activities—for example, lowering volleyball nets or using balloons for accessibility. Sensory equipment will be included, and the University’s sensory room can provide a calming space for children who are anxious, neurodivergent, or overwhelmed by noise.
Collaboration with young people and the community: In what ways does your initiative engage young people and community members closest to the problem? What role do they play in building the solution you deliver?
Working closely with the WP team will be a major part of the programme, as they already have networks set up with local school groups, it would be a good way of gauging activities that are popular and areas of interest that have not been explored. This will then assist activators in planning sessions with the oversight of our trained staff that have coaching qualifications in different sports/disciplines. Partnerships will be established with local charities such as, The Peel, local community centres, Goals for girls, this will help when growing the programme and reaching a wider target audience within the community, offering a multitude of non-traditional spaces to utilise. As the charities and community centres will already have member base of public that will attend for various other family activities, this is a great way to advertise and show the benefits of the programme, by offering pop ups throughout the year and gain interest ahead of camps. Camp sessions will be planned and delivered dependant on children’s needs/wants. This could include pre-school sessions, after school sessions and holiday camps during half terms and summer holidays. This could allow different sessions to be tried and tested to see popularity and change up activities after gathering feedback from children/parents after each session/holiday camp. Future camps will be adapted from lesson's learned, making sure to cater session to the needs of the children to encourage their personal and academic achievements.
Potential for/Evidence of Impact: How do you imagine your initiative will make a difference in unlocking spaces for and access to physical activity and sport so far? If you have already implemented it, what difference have you made so far? What is the impact your initiative has had , and or what impact do you envision having in the future?
There is significant potential for this programme to unlock new spaces for physical activity and widen access for our target groups. Many children will be trying sport for the first time, especially non‑traditional activities. Our aim is to remove financial and cultural barriers by offering free sessions and introducing sports such as parkour, dance, boxing, and karate. Affordable holiday provision can be delivered by using church halls and local parks for activities like dance and boxing, eliminating transport and membership costs. Within CitySport, an “Open Hall” model would allow children to drop in at set times and explore different sports on their own terms. Working with schools, we can introduce kit‑loan schemes (“boot rooms” or “kit banks”) to remove the cost barrier of sports clothing. After‑school clubs hosted at CitySport could offer yoga, tag rugby, and other non‑traditional activities. Additional options such as street sports or skateboarding could be delivered at Whittington Park’s skate park. Partnerships with local council schemes and holiday childcare providers will be key. Elizabeth House currently offers affordable childcare at £15 per day, and St Mary’s Play Scheme provides free healthy lunches—both strong partners for children aged 4–11. We also aim to collaborate with charities such as The Access to Sports Project and Lift, which support young people aged 11–25 with free sport and life‑skills programmes. Given the rise of women’s football, a partnership with Goals for Girls would be highly impactful. Girls drop out of sport at twice the rate of boys by age 14, and the programme has shown strong outcomes: 90% of participants report improved confidence and resilience, and 94% of girls at risk of exclusion completed the full academic year.
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
This project allows for non-typical teams across the university to work together and connect on a different level which wouldn’t ordinarily happen, creating stronger bonds and working culture throughout the University. It has been a focus for CitySport to work with the widening participation team for a long time now but the opportunity has not arose until now, this would be a great platform to really push forward the project, given the WP team already have the direct links with the community and school groups, we would be enhancing the programme and aiming to reach even wider in the community to help as many deprived children as we possibly can. The chance to bring non-traditional sports, in non-sporting settings. to the wider community, as currently our main focus would be on badminton, basketball, volleyball, football but we have seen how popular martial arts, boxing plus many more non-traditional activities have been with the increase in societies at the University and external hirers of martial arts groups, these are not only sporting activities but life skills that will help children to progress within their social and professional life improving on their discipline, focus and all round well-being. The programme will create employment opportunities for students as we employ Uni-temps, ambassadors and will be looking for more skilled coaches in different disciplines to facilitate the programme and help it to grow. This allows the students to have hands on work experience which will in turn help them grow as a person and give valuable transferable skills which will help in their future personal and professional development.
Viability and Scalability: How are you setting your initiative up for success, and what is your plan to ensure operational sustainability of your solution and its impact? What are your ideas for scaling your initiative to the next level?
The programme is a long-term plan that we would like to initiate in summer 2026 and grow the programme over time. The plan would be to purchase all of the equipment needed to grow the programme for all of the non-traditional sporting activities, once purchased, our staff would maintain the equipment ensuring it is safe for continued use and replaced if/when needed. It would be ideal if the funding could cover our student ambassadors to facilitate the programme and scaling up in the future. The contracted staff that would facilitate some of the bespoke sessions are already covered as they are salaried, therefore would not have an impact on the funding budget, this also applies to the WP team being a permanent team at the University. Moving forward, once the programme is established, our plan would be that holiday camps would be self-sustainable by charging a fee to attend, whether this is discounted or only applies to people that can afford to pay but will aim to cover the costs of the programme to allow it to keep running and grow over time. After school clubs can be hosted at CitySport from 4pm-6pm, which can help with childcare for parents, allowing the children to be in a safe space, whilst being physically active and learning new skills. The aim would be to complete school road shows, using out WP connections with the local schools, we can host activities within their school playground and halls. This would increase the visibility of the programme and allow us to promote the summer camps at CitySport to grow together with the community. As mentioned previously we would link up with local community hubs/centres and host events hitting a larger target audience.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
Operations & Programmes Manager – Lead Projects Operations Manager – Support and Train student activators Coaches (students/staff) – Run sessions WP team – school relations Booking manager – Oversee system configuration Community partners – Referrals and Volunteer (or paid coaches) Julius Rutherfood – Cleaning team, maintaining a clean, tidy, safe space
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/to grow.
This will involve all of the above-mentioned key roles to plan, the O&PM will lead on planning, key aspects to map out; Concept and feasibility; - Define objectives - Set a budget - Select location/budget - Determine dates & Duration Logistics and Preparation; - Risk Assessment & Safety - Staff recruitment & Training - Activity Planning - Logistics and planning - Full-time staff identified with coaching qualifications - Student staff recruitment - Student staff training - First aid certificate - DBS checked staff Marketing - Marketing & Promotion - Registration & Communication On site considerations - Equipment ordered - Factor in delivery times/dates - Equipment storage - Plan for transporting equipment to other sites/venues - Ensure bookings are booked in advance on XN - No clashing with external hirers and camps A detailed project plan will be made by Gantt chart to identify all key milestone dates and ensure each stage of the planning and implementation phase is followed.
Capacity-Building Participation and Support Funding: If you were to make it as a finalist, you will be required to participate in an 8-week capacity building programme. If funding/ cost is a barrier to your participation, we may be able to offer up to 10,000 GBP of grant money available to support you. Please break down below, if it is the case, what costs you would incur and you would need covered. (Please note that there are restrictions on how the grant money may be used; please refer to the T&Cs for further details.
We would require funding to assist with our programme to purchase the sports equipment required and the staffing costs for activators and coaches (not including permanent staff). A breakdown of costs; - Jazzminton set x 20 - £55 per item, total £1,100 - Suction archery kit x 20 - £13 per item, total £260 - Plastic Fencing kit x 10 £66 per item, total £660 - Indoor hockey (3 in 1 set) x 10, £30 per item, total £300 - Dodgeballs x 2 packs (12 balls) – total, £60 - Mini basketballs – x 4 packs, total £48 - Mini footballs – (12 balls) x 2 packs - £14 - Portables adjustable basketball hoops – x 6 total £300 - Mini pop up tennis nets – x 4 £264 - Mini tennis rackets – x 20, £16 per item, total £320 - Adjustable volleyball net x 4 - £30 per item, £120 - Curling sets – x 6, £14 per item, total £84 Sensory equipment - Wiggle wobble cushion x 4, £80 - Peanut ball for kids x 10, £170 - Sensory mirror x 4 - £216 - Sensory lights fibreoptic curtain x 2 - £260 - Quick cricket sets – x 4, total £160 - Spikeball sets x 6 - £210 - Misc - £374 Total equipment cost - £5,000 Marketing Collateral - £1000 Student Staffing costs/ training/ first aid/ DBS checks - £4,000
