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
Hashim
Last Name
Rawat
Pronouns
He/Him
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.
Lead Organisation Name
North London Muslim Community Centre
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
1984
Initiative Title
The Culturally Safe & Integrated Youth Hub
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
https://www.nlmcc.org.uk/youth-service/projects-and-services/
Initiative Stage
Established (You’ve successfully passed early phases and have a plan for the future. Your venture has been in existence for 6 years and above)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Children & Youth
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
We will transform our community centre into a 'Culturally Safe & Integrated Youth Hub' by refurbishing our sports and education facilities into a seamless 'sport-to-skills' pathway that re-engages and upskills Hackney’s most underserved youth.
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?
We are addressing the "fragmented pathway" between physical health and social mobility for BAME and Muslim youth in Hackney & the Cazenove Ward within it. This area faces a "spatial squeeze" where intense youth density (over 6,000 under-25s) collides with acute deprivation (43% child poverty). Consequently, our community suffers from high health inequalities (41.4% childhood obesity) and persistent risks of youth unemployment (NEET). The core problem is that recreation and support are currently disconnected. Generic council leisure centres offer facilities but lack the "trust capital" to engage our youth, who often view them as culturally unwelcoming or sites of surveillance. Conversely, while NLMCC has the trust, our current facilities are disjointed. The sports hall and education spaces function in silos. A young person attends football (the hook) but leaves immediately after, missing critical mentoring opportunities because the physical environment does not facilitate a natural transition. They return to overcrowded homes with no quiet space to study, remaining trapped in a cycle of inactivity and low attainment. This problem is critical because, for our demographic, sport is often the only effective hook into education. As a community-led anchor organisation for more than 4 decades, we live this reality. We see talent wasted daily because our infrastructure creates friction rather than flow. We are solving this by removing the physical separation between "play" and "progress," ensuring that every sports session is a gateway to skills and safety.
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?
Our approach transforms our centre from a series of disjointed rooms into a cohesive 'Sport-to-Skills' engine. We will use the funding to refurbish and more closely integrate our 60sqm Youth Recreation Room and IT facilities with our 195sqm Sports Hall. By upgrading the fabric of the building to be high-quality, we will remove the physical barriers that currently separate 'play' from 'progress'. This solution reimagines the sports hall not just as a place to exercise, but as a gateway to opportunity. A YP enters for football (the hook), but the architecture itself (modern, inviting, and integrated) naturally funnels them into the adjacent skills zone for mentoring and digital training. This 'stealth' integration unlocks access by overcoming the stigma often attached to seeking educational support; the transition from the pitch to the PC becomes seamless and destigmatized. Critically, NLMCC owns the freehold of our building. This security of tenure is vital; it allows us to execute capital improvements immediately without the friction of landlord negotiations, guaranteeing that the investment remains a permanent community asset. Our "aha" moment came during a Youth Forum consultation. A young footballer told us, "I come here to play, not to go back to school." We realised our educational spaces felt sterile and hidden away, disconnected from the vibrant energy of the sports hall. We were watching young people play football every week, yet only a handful would stay for the CV workshops hosted in separate rooms. We realised we were fighting our own architecture. To fix the fragmented pathway, we have to break down the walls - literally transforming our facility into a single, vibrant "third space" where sport and skills are visible, accessible, and indivisible.
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?
Co-design is the DNA of NLMCC. We do not just consult; we embed young people in our decision-making architecture. Our Youth Forum, comprising 30 active members aged 12-19, meets quarterly and has been the primary architect of this "Integrated Hub" proposal. The shift from a standard "sports upgrade" to this "Sport-to-Skills" refurbishment came directly from them. During a consultation on why uptake of our employability workshops was low despite high sports attendance, members were blunt: the existing education rooms felt "sterile" and "like school." They asked for a space that felt like a "clubhouse": a high-quality, social environment where learning didn't feel forced. This grant will deliver exactly that vision. To ensure this ownership continues during the capital works, we will form a Youth Steering Group. This group will have a delegated budget to select furniture, decor, and IT equipment, ensuring the aesthetic appeals to their peers, not just facility managers. Beyond the youth, our connection to the community is structural. We have served Hackney for over 40 years. Our management committee includes former service users, and our current Youth Manager started as a participant in our programs. This "lived experience" leadership ensures our solutions remain culturally safe and responsive to the real-time needs of Hackney's families.
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?
We are unlocking the full potential of our freehold asset by transforming it from a "hall for hire" into a "social mobility engine." Currently, we engage more than 200 young people annually, but the impact is often limited to the hour they spend on the pitch. The physical separation of our sports and skills areas creates a "drop-off" effect—youth leave immediately after exercise. By physically integrating these spaces, we will remove this friction. We project: * Deepened Engagement: "Dwell time" will increase by 30-40% as youth transition naturally from sport to the social/skills zone. * Health Outcomes: With a more inviting "Clubhouse" feel, we aim for 100 regular participants to achieve a 15% increase in physical activity levels, directly combatting Hackney's 41% childhood obesity rate. * Skills Progression: We target 10 NEET young people annually to progress into education or employment, using sport as the initial hook to get them into the building. * Accreditation: 10 young people per year will gain AQA Unit Awards in leadership/sports, validating their skills. Long-Term Impact: This renovation creates a permanent infrastructure for "stealth intervention." It normalises the idea that a sports centre is also a place for career ambition. By 2028, we envision a cohort of young leaders who entered for football or other recreational activities but stayed for the qualifications, breaking the cycle of deprivation in Cazenove Ward. We have already seen this work in small pilots where coaches delivered mentoring on-pitch; this project scales that logic to the entire building.
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
Our initiative innovates by dismantling the spatial and operational silos between 'sport' and 'skills'. Typically, youth provision in Hackney is fragmented: leisure happens in parks or centres, while careers advice happens in schools or Job Centres. This separation creates a 'threshold anxiety' for at-risk youth who often distrust formal educational settings. Our approach is original because we are this opportunity to physically merge these domains, turning a community centre into a "Sport-to-Skills Engine." We are applying the high-impact "Sport for Development" methodology (usually seen in large national NGOs like Street League) within a hyper-local, BAME-led grassroots setting. The innovation lies in the imaginative use of space: we are not just co-locating services; we are removing the barriers of access between these services. This allows for a "stealth intervention" model where a football session fluidly transitions into a CV workshop without the young person ever leaving their "safe space." This tackles the root of the problem: disengagement. By changing the structure of the environment we are shifting norms by redesigning the facility to signal that sport and ambition go hand-in-hand. Unlike generic leisure centres which are transactional, our integrated spatial design facilitates a relational journey from "player" to "leader," making employability support accessible to those who would never walk into a formal careers service.
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?
Viability: Our initiative is built on a foundation of 44 years of operational stability (est. 1980) and, crucially, freehold ownership of our premises. Unlike projects vulnerable to rent hikes or lease expiries, our asset is secure. This guarantees that Go! London’s investment will permanently benefit the Hackney community. We have a robust governance structure and a proven track record of managing grants, ensuring strict financial and delivery compliance. Sustainability: We operate a diversified income model. Revenue from our on-site nursery and facility hire cross-subsidises our youth work, ensuring that the "Integrated Hub" remains operationally sustainable beyond the grant period. The refurbishment itself contributes to sustainability by modernising our facilities, making them more attractive for hire during off-peak hours to generate further revenue. Scalability: We view this project as a pilot for a Community Hub 2.0 model. Our ambition is to codify our "Sport-to-Skills" curriculum and spatial layout into a blueprint that can be replicated by other faith and community centres across London. To scale to the next level, we aim to build formal referral partnerships with major City employers and corporate CSR programs, using the Hub as a pipeline for diverse talent. We will use the capacity-building support to refine our impact measurement, allowing us to prove the economic value of our work to future statutory funders.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
Delivery is shared between our senior leadership, frontline youth team, and the young people themselves, ensuring a balance of strategic oversight and user-led execution. The Director of Services: holds overall accountability for the grant. He will manage the contracts, oversee financial reporting to Go! London, and handle high-level partnership agreements with local schools and employers. Youth Services Manager: acts as the Operational Lead. They will manage the daily "Sport-to-Skills" timetable, supervising the transition of youth between sports and employability sessions. They are also one of the Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs). Frontline Youth Workers (x4): Recruited from the local community to ensure cultural fluency, they deliver the sports sessions and act as "bridging mentors," physically guiding youth from the recreational activities into the IT suite for skills workshops. Youth Steering Group (Partner): A rotating group of 12 young people from our Youth Forum who act as "internal consultants." They will have sign-off authority on the refurbishment aesthetics (furniture/decor) and will co-interview any new staff, ensuring the team remains relatable. Site Manager: Responsible for onsite logistics during the capital works (refurbishment of the connecting spaces) to ensure minimal disruption to existing services at the community centre.
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/to grow.
Our project is "shovel-ready" as we own the freehold. The timeline focuses on the integration of the spaces followed by the relaunch of this service. Month 1-2 (Preparation): Finalise technical specifications for the refurbishment (integrating the Youth Room/IT facilities with the Sports Hall). Convene Youth Steering Group to select "Clubhouse" decor and IT equipment. Month 3 (Procurement): Competitive tender process to appoint local contractors for the internal alterations and redecoration. Month 4-5 (Transformation): Execution of capital works: removing physical barriers, upgrading IT infrastructure, and installing flexible partitioning. Staff training on the new "Dual-Delivery" curriculum (integrating AQA awards into sports sessions). Month 6 (Soft Launch): "Test & Learn" weeks with Youth Forum members to trial the flow between the sports hall and skills zone. Snagging of physical works. Month 7 (Go! Live): Official launch of the Culturally Safe & Integrated Youth Hub. Full timetable commences with 150+ participants. Month 12 (Review): Annual Impact Report highlighting NEET reduction numbers and physical activity increases.
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.
As a lean community organisation, releasing our senior decision-makers (Director and Youth Manager) for an 8-week intensive programme creates an operational gap. We request funding to backfill their posts and to bring in technical expertise to refine our capital plans during the programme. Backfill Staffing (£4,500): To cover the operational duties of the Director and Youth Services Manager (approx. 2 days/week combined) during the capacity-building sessions, ensuring frontline delivery is not compromised. Technical Consultancy (£4,000): To engage a Quantity Surveyor (QS) or Architect during the refinement phase. This will allow us to produce professional CAD drawings and a detailed cost plan for the "Integration Refurbishment," ensuring our final capital bid is technically robust and accurate. Travel & Subsistence (£500): To support travel for the team and Youth Steering Group members to attend any in-person sessions or site visits. Total Request: £9,000.
