Garfield Weston Foundation

Youth

Rhondda Netball Foundation

Creating opportunities for women and girls to participate in sport, to support their mental health and improve their physical wellbeing.

Two girls playing netball

From a small beginning in 2016, Rhondda Netball Foundation (RNF) is now the largest female sports initiative in Wales, reaching over 900 girls and women each week in out-of-school activities, plus an additional 1,000 girls aged 12-18 across Rhondda Taff’s secondary schools. As a direct result of RNF’s work, there are 30% more girls actively engaging in regular healthy activity across Rhondda. The charity has a track-record of developing programmes to meet need and its Community Coach & Role Model is its latest example. This programme trains and equips young women with skills and qualifications to become leaders in their communities and helps improve their employability. RNF had identified that investment in its Community Coach & Role Model programme was essential for the expansion of its core programmes into a new area.

The recent Garfield Weston Foundation grant was absolutely HUGE for our charity. Not only has it helped our long-term plan for sustainability, but it gave us the means and confidence to expand our Community Coach & Role Model development programme in an effort to give opportunities to girls and women to the Tonyrefail area, the main community in Rhondda missing from our provision up to now. As a result of the Foundation’s generous support, our charity now empowers over 30 female leaders who reach and impact 900+ girls and women through our core programmes and activities each week.

Jody Barnes, Operations Manager

The charity demonstrated robust safeguarding policies and procedures in its application, included case studies that clearly demonstrated the impact of its work on young people’s lives and provided a very clear income and expenditure plan and fundraising strategy. We were delighted to make a core cost grant to enable RNF to invest in its leadership development programme.

Find out more about the type of grants we make

  • Capital projects

    Capital means building works or repairs, or equipment that's necessary to your organisation's work.

  • Operating/Core costs

    Operating/Core cost grants are made towards the general costs of running your organisation.

  • Projects/specific activity

    These grants are for a specific project or area of your work. It will have a defined scope of work and timescale.