The 3Pillars Community

Lambeth is a vibrant exciting community to be part of. 

But it’s not without its challenges, one of the most densely populated areas in the country, with a ¼ of under 19’s in the borough living in poverty, it’s considered one of the most deprived boroughs in London. 

We work with young people who are vulnerable to crime and who have been in prison themselves. In Lambeth, only 30 % of people who are considered socially excluded people [those with low education and young and ex-offenders] have access to education, training and employment. 

How are we working in the community?

3Pillars Project is working to change that. 

We are a unique sports community of positive role models that mentors young people who need the support, whether when they are leaving prison, or those who could be vulnerable to crime. 

We run a community gym several times a week- providing free HIIT, strength and boxing sessions at our site, The Black Prince Trust, a central hub in the local community. 

Alongside our sports sessions, each prison leaver gets one to one mentoring, to help them overcome the challenges of being in the community, create new goals and undertake training and qualifications that help them to secure a great job. We call them apprentices.

It’s our apprentices that make our fitness community so special. 

They assist and support the coaching of all of the free community sessions, engaging young people who might be facing similar challenges to them. Their lived experience helps other young people to pursue a positive future and overcome potentially life changing challenges. 3Pillars is about building a safe, consistent community of positive role models through sport.  You can find out more about how our programmes work here.

Our impact 

We are person-centred in our approach and support the goal setting and career aspirations of each apprentice, this can look different to each person. So, we thought we would let our apprentices tell you in their own words what it means to be part of our sports community.

We need your support to keep going

COVID-19 has hit our income hard! Every year we run fundraisers with all of our supporters. Unfortunately this year we had to postpone several key annual fundraising events that we had planned over summer and autumn. Much of our annual income, normally generated through these events has not come in. This means that our programme that supports young prison leavers and young vulnerable people in the community is at risk. This fundraiser is about giving young people, who already faced disadvantages and steep challenges, the opportunity to learn, train and overcome their pasts.  

We also know from our current participants that the challenges they face have only got harder in the post pandemic world and we want to ensure that we are able to meet their needs for mentoring and support.

We want to see these people succeed in education and employment regardless of their past. But we need your support for us to continue to run our programme. The current economy and job market has made it harder for young people leaving prison to get jobs and attain qualifications

What will the money support? 

Any money raised would enable us to:

• Pay for the rent on our sports facilities 
• Enable us to engage extra mentors to meet the increased demand from the young people
• It would mean that we could expand the number of sessions we run, supporting more people in the Lambeth community. 
• It would also make funding available for when we do go back into prisons to run the Rugby Academy.

Sport is at the heart of what we do...

A unique location, in the heart of communities we serve, BPT has unique sports facilities that not only enable us to engage the community through sport, but a space where we provide crucial training to our coaches and apprentices. Sport is at the heart of what we do. Securing the finances to pay our rent would significantly improve our financial stability and ensure we can continue to use an essential tool for our programmes, sports facilities.

Thank you for your support,

The 3Pillars team