EFL Week of Action at the Crawley Town Community Foundation

The Foundation was tasked with highlighting sessions that make impacts on participants around Crawley. Three participants from the Extra Time Hubs, Move the Goalposts and Education Academy programmes told their stories during the week.

​Yaro Tsyhanenko is an Education Academy player that was part of the squad that won the National Football Youth League South Championship title last season, and he shared his story about coming to Crawley from war-torn Ukraine.

He said: “‘I really wanted to study here and even more wanted to visit the UK as a tourist. Now I'm here and that's all happened very unexpectedly. It's more than 620 days of full scale war and all the news I read every day and is so terrible for me. My father is a military man and my family are in Ukraine.

“​I came here to to Crawley Town Foundation, and It was difficult for me to be to be here, a lot to do with documents, but then a lot of people helped me, the club supported me, and now I have a great opportunity to start here, train with the best guys, to learn from coaches, management, and staff. I'm very happy to be here, and I'm very thankful for all the help and support that they gave me.”

​When talking about what happens next he said: “‘Honestly, I don't know my future plans, but definitely I will continue studying and hopefully Ukraine will win this war, everything will be fine, and I will be able to see my family very soon.”

​Recent years has also seen the pandemic and the Foundation has played an important role for the community since the Covid lockdowns and where the Foundation has strengthened its commitment to tackling social isolation.

In that time has borne fruit for Hubs member Brenda: "The Foundation has given me a purpose to get up and get out and to meet new friends, every week. They help me and always say if there is anything they can do for me, it gives me a purpose in life. I heard about foundation through a social prescriber after a deterioration of my mental health from my doctor after losing my dog – this left me isolated.”

After joining the Foundation Brenda had life-altering Sepsis and credited the Foundation for helping her through the journey.

She said: “The foundation has been the one thing in hospital that kept me going, I was so looking forward to coming back.

"When I was in rehab, I used to say to the other patients let’s get a taxi and go to my club, it gave me hope and a purpose to get better and get back, it was my major goal to achieve going back to Extra Time Hubs.

"During my recover, the staff have been amazing, helping me, encouraging me, to walk, talk properly, and rest when I needed to. I also had supportive friends who gave me lifts so I could get to foundation.”

The Week of Action ended with a win for the Education Academy South Reserves team as they overcame Queens Park Rangers away from home 3-2.

n Visit www.ctcommunityfoundation.com or find the Foundation on Twitter @crawleytowncf, Instagram @crawleytowncf, or Facebook @ctcommunityfoundation