Building Community Pride

building community pride and creating a legacy which outlasts our interaction with an individual is crucial to us achieving success.

DCCT Anuual Report 2022

An overarching aim of our broad range of work is to ultimately improve and instil pride in the communities we serve. We aim to add value, create belonging and promote opportunity to build community pride.

Our programmes put community at their very heart, and help others to appreciate the places they live, and support their improvement. Our NCS projects exemplify that notion. They encourage young people to make a difference in their local communities by choosing causes which mean something to them. This year, that included: Save the Children, Heartlink, Alzheimer’s Society, Doorways Derby, Bridge the Gap, Children’s First, Bundles of Hope, Hope Centre Long Eaton, Derbyshire Refugee Solidarity, Cancer Research and Derby Food 4 Thought, amongst many others. Over 400 young people took part in our summer and autumn programmes. We also extended our NCS delivery through the Skillsbooster programme, which saw us work with an additional 225 pupils at local secondary schools, to increase confidence, knowledge and selfesteem. A major target for 2022 was to increase our fundraising capacity as a charity to ensure we have sufficient levels of unreserved funding, to either support new projects or continue funding of existing initiatives. We kickstarted several new ideas to help us generate funds in new and innovative ways. Firstly, we installed the first 1884 Wall in January of this year, which saw 1,000 Rams’ fans names displayed at Pride Park Stadium. This generated an incredible £11,000, which covered the costs of our Sensory Room for the 2021/22 season. The Sensory Room is a hugely important facility which allows children and young people with additional needs, especially autism, to enjoy a matchday experience at Pride Park Stadium. Fans’ buy in allowed us to continue running the room throughout Derby County Football Club’s administration across 2021 and 2022. The administration of the football club presented a truly difficult period of time, but it also inspired fans to come together as a community like never before. The Rams Family Fund was a product of fans’ community spirit, and it raised over £33,000, allowing us to send over 1,500 fans to games. April 2022 saw us return to our regular springtime slot for the Derby 10K. As our biggest fundraiser, we welcomed over 3,000 runners to the event and generated £28,000 for our projects. A number of participants take on the event each year as a way to give back to the programmes which support them. 2022 also saw the return of our Rams in Kenya project after a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic. 66 volunteers took on the trip of a lifetime to support our five partner schools in the slums of Nakuru, Kenya. They helped to build school facilities, redecorate, provide activity and generate funds to purchase equipment. This was then followed by our Grads in Kenya trip, where 20 graduates from our NCS programme continued the work started by our volunteers across two schools. The Rams in Kenya trip demonstrates our commitment to building community pride, not just at home, but also in the communities we serve abroad. As we look ahead to the tenth anniversary of the trip in 2023, where we will take our largest ever cohort of volunteers, we also ensure the trip supports our programmes locally by investing a percentage of funds raised into Derbyshire-based initiatives ran by our Health team. Each year, community pride is best showcased through our Annual Awards. 2022’s event was no different, with worthy winners being nominated and recognised from across our programmes. The night acts as a fantastic reminder of the reach and breadth of our projects, and celebrates the achievements of our participants, staff, volunteers, partners and supporters. To us, building community pride and creating a legacy which outlasts our interaction with an individual is crucial to us achieving success. To see participants years beyond their participation with us, and see them leading happy and healthy lives, or to provide a pathway which can support an individual throughout their lifetime is our ultimate goal.