The No More Red initiative launched in January with adidas to support the long-standing work being done by Arsenal in the Community to keep young people safe from knife crime and youth violence.
Meet Elyse
Elyse has been a Young Ambassador for Islington-based mentoring CIC Jigsaw for the past 3 years. Elyse has demonstrated commitment and passion for supporting her peers and advising other young people on how to reach out and gain support. She trained to become a peer mentor in 2022 and is seen as a Community Champion by local young people. Elyse is a very talented individual who uses her creative talents such as photography and public speaking at events in the community to positively engage other young people.
Meet Josh
Josh is mentor at the Friday Night Football provision delivered by local charity Copenhagen Youth Project. Josh has been part of the provision for a year and has also used his leadership skills to organise teams for tournaments including London Youth 7 aside Tournament, Corams Fields league and The Peace Cup. Josh also plays for at Market Road for St Johns Wood and is a positive role model for young people in the area.
Meet Quevin
Quevin is a former participant from our PL Kicks and Employability programmes, who has been volunteering for over a year on our Kicks programme in Hackney. Quevin uses his experience from the programme to motivate and inspire the next generation of young people and leads sports activities. Quevin also takes part in community social action projects and is an ambassador for young people from the community. Quevin is a fantastic role model and youth mentor, who demonstrates a passion with working with young people in the local community.
Meet Antonette
Antonette is a Youth Volunteer with the Copenhagen Youth Project in Islington. As well as working supporting other local young people, Antonette brings wide skill set to the organisation and is a great role model for other young people in the project. Antonette works on all CYP social media platforms and also works with the girls organising trips and helping to facilitate a girls group providing a safe space for girls to talk, discuss and plan various experiences both in and outside of CYP.
Meet Iggy
Iggy Graves has been a Kicks participant for the last year and already added a huge amount of personality and support for his peers. Iggy is popular, motivated and high energy participant – but has shown on many occasions empathy to his team mates and also worked hard to integrate new members at any opportunities. Iggy has also worked hard to be involved in Community tournament opportunities, including representing the club in tournaments hosted by Manchester United and Norwich City.
Meet Chris
Christopher Jackson has been taking part in Arsenal in the Community programmes for nearly 10 years – and as a massive Arsenal fan, has always represented the values of the club. Supportive of team mates, helpful towards coaches and always keen to take part in extra opportunities Chris is highly valued by all who attend his Kicks session. Chris has represented the Community at many venues over the years and always been competitive whilst showing excellent sportsmanship.
Meet Albi
Albi Green has been at Copenhagen Youth Project (CYP) in Islington for 6 years until he progressed into a Mentoring position 6 months ago.
As a mentor, Albi has demonstrated excellent leadership qualities and is now seen as a role model by other young people. An excellent sportsman Albi plays goalkeeper for the CYP football team and despite only being 16 has displayed great confidence in competing in the Market Road Men’s League. Albi is highly motivated and is able to inspire and encourage other young people to participate.
Meet Thara
Thara is passionate about football and has taken part in a number of different Arsenal in the Community projects over the past 3 years.
Thara did not have much football experience prior to joining our Girls Kicks programme however she quickly became an important member of the group through regular participation, encouraging other girls to join the programme and demonstrating excellent leadership skills.
Thara is now playing for a local team in Hackney and attends a Sports College as she pursues a career in the industry.
Meet Sanchez
Sanchez is an Islington resident who has been a participant on our Kicks project for the past 5 years.
Since joining our programmes at the age of 13, although he was shy, Sanchez immediately showed an interest in helping staff. He completed his FA Junior Football Leaders course at the age of 14 so that he could learn the basics of football coaching and a year later joined the Arsenal Ball Squad.
Due to COVID disruptions, Sanchez spent 3 seasons as part of the Ball Squad, demonstrating outstanding commitment. Following his final season, Sanchez joined the Arsenal Venue team, helping setup the stadium on matchdays and recently joined our Community team as a Sessional Worker on a number of our local initiatives.
Meet Jely
Jely grew up in Islington and is a huge Arsenal fan. He always loved football and played in the Arsenal Community programme, which led onto coaching. Jely gained experience in shooting/directing through arsenal in the community, before going on to study film at uni.
Meet Khush
Khush was brought up in family full of Arsenal fans. She learned to play sax through her school music programme. She has many interests, from DJ’ing, playing in a band, to organising gigs, and she’s passionate about politics, from protesting, to getting young people out to vote. Khush is working on building her career in music, as a radio presenter.
Meet Aron
Aron is a boxing and MMA personal trainer, who is part of the NMR collective. He aspires to own his own gym - and his training philosophy mixes intense workouts, fighting techniques and mindfulness. Aron works with young people within his community and, through No More Red, we are working with adidas to connect Aron with boxing talent, such as Anthony yarde, and trainer Tunde Ajayi, who have provided tips and advice to help him in his future career.
Meet Abigail
Abigail has been an inspiration to Goodinge Community Centre. Having overcome challenges within in the community growing up she now aims to help others in her local community.
From a young age Abigail has helped run local Community Drama sessions for young people and she encourages young people to participate and take part in doing shows for local residents. Abigail has been dedicating her time to help at a local lunch club for elder persons in the area as well as organising other activities which bring different groups of people together on a regular basis. She is very passionate about people's wellbeing and uses her own personal experiences to help overcome their own challenges.
Meet Joseph
Joseph has lived in Islington all his life and now works in his local Council, representing all young people across the borough. At the start of the pandemic, with all the uncertainties it gave to many, Joseph put himself forward to work on the council’s food distribution centre. He showed tremendous passion towards supporting others and his work ethic eventually led him to running the food distribution centre, working with key partners such as Arsenal and his Church.
Having initially joined the council as an apprentice, Joseph is seen as a role model to others in the community. He has joined the council’s mentorship programme and now mentor’s other apprentices across the council to support other young people with achieving their goals. He regularly attends schools to share his journey, inspires many that anything is possible and helps support other young people gain confidence.
Joseph is very ambitious and with his hard work and innovative approach to tasks we are confident that he will continue to grow and being many others with him.
