Croeso Week – Dragons at the heart of their community through Sporting Memories clubs

Croeso week

This week we are shining a spotlight on our network across Wales as part of our ‘Croeso Week’ and the important work the clubs across the country do to support older people.

Our work in Wales is possible through support from the first phase of the Healthy and Active Fund, a £5.4m Fund run in partnership by the Welsh Government, Sport Wales and Public Health Wales.

Dragons Rugby operate four clubs across the Newport and Southeast Wales region as part of their fantastic community work. On Wednesday (23 March), they will be hosting a special event alongside us for ‘Croeso Week’ which will welcome over 50 Sporting Memories participants for a day of fun and reminiscence.

Ahead of the day, we caught up with Gareth Sullivan, Head of Inclusion, and Karen Burgess, Lead on the Sporting Memories activities at the Dragons, about what Sporting Memories brings to the Rugby club and its community efforts.

“We’ve been partners with Sporting Memories for about two-and-a-half-years now, and we’ve grown from one club to four clubs – and we’ve had Covid in the middle of that as well! Our Headline Community partner, Centerprise International also share our vision in providing life changing opportunities and delivering positive outcomes and we are delighted that they provide support to enhance our Sporting Memories provision” Gareth began.

“The outcomes of the sessions are really important to us at the Dragons and that means supporting our older people that are isolated or living with dementia. As a sport, our demographic is on the older side, so we’ve found that using rugby in this type of environment has helped us to engage more with the local community, particularly those groups that our members come from.”

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Volunteers

We’re always on the lookout for volunteers to help run our clubs all across England, Scotland and Wales – find out more here.

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Our impact

Reducing Isolation

Bringing older people together to reduce isolation and loneliness

Mental Wellbeing

Supporting older people to improve their mental wellbeing

Physical Wellbeing

Getting older people active to live healthier lifestyles

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