Luke’s Story
Luke is 13 years old. He was born with a rare blood disease which left him very vulnerable to infection. Because of this, he missed months of schooling after most children returned following Covid and was isolated at home. His condition required him to have a bone marrow transplant three years ago which was successful, and Luke is now, miraculously, a healthy teenager.
However, last year and not long after starting secondary school, his father was involved in a fatal accident, leaving Luke and his mum, Ana alone.
Ana says that in the months after the accident, Luke struggled to sleep, could not focus on schoolwork and felt depressed and tired all the time. He spent his time at home on screens and had no outside interests.
Then Luke joined W4 Youth.
He attends all three football training sessions each week and thoroughly enjoys playing football with his friends. His highlight of the week is playing for one of the W4 Youth teams in the Friday Night 5’s because of the positive feelings of being part of a team.
Ana says that Luke has transformed. He is calmer, comes home and does his homework straight away, sleeps well and gets up ready and happy to go to school.
He has also started to teach football to a 6 year old boy with autism who did not have the confidence to join his school football club but now, after playing with Luke, loves the game and has joined his school club. Ana is rightly so proud of Luke for developing enough confidence to help another child.
Having a place for Luke to go which is safe, and importantly, free of charge, has helped Ana immeasurably. Her only complaint is that now is that it’s a struggle to get him to eat dinner because he is such a rush to get out and get to W4 Youth each night!
Nayan and Haroon’s Story
Haroon is nineteen. He has personal experience with violence and the criminal justice system. . One evening, he saw children doing sports at W4 Youth and went over to see what was going on. He hoped his younger brother, Nayan, who is thirteen who spent all his time at home gaming, might be able to join in.
Nayan joined the club straight away and Haroon started to help set up and put away the equipment each nightstand then asked whether he could train to be a W4 Youth junior coach. He has now completed his football coaching training and is working at W4 Youth every night.
Haroon is incredibly aware that he was on the ‘the wrong path’, being led by individuals from backgrounds of violence and crime who were not true friends. With the confidence and security W4 Youth has given him, he has move away from the group he was in and has new friends through W4 Youth and has started a university degree in Business Computing.
Nayan meanwhile has become a confident footballer having never enjoyed sport before and has a whole new group of friends at the club.
Haroon’s sister now participates in the W4 Youth activities each night.
W4 Youth 