Abraham Moss Warriors at the Heart of the Community is a multi-cultural club with a focus on sport and other activities for local families in Cheetham and Crumpsall, North Manchester.
The club recently celebrated 21 years of making a local difference after being founded in 2000 by June Kelly MBE. Their ethos is to help people of all backgrounds and ages to get more involved in sport and healthy activities in safe environments. Thye provide quality and fun sporting activities where people from different nationalities and faiths can come together to develop their potential and take part in activities they may have not considered before.
The club caters for members of all abilities, from all backgrounds, from the age of 5 years upwards and offers many different sporting activities including football, cricket, cycling, tennis, futsal, badminton, archery and chess.
In addition, they also deliver an Active Families Project, with the overall aim of improving mental and physical wellbeing. Activities include gardening, walk and talk, Couch to 5K, Arts and a variety of cooking, crafts, nature and science sessions. They also run successful literacy, numeracy and science-based support projects to help young people with their academic studies.
All these activities have led to a better sense of belonging and helped in reducing the risk of vulnerable children being drawn into anti-social activities and joining street gangs. Local children and their families have also benefited from many new friendships, higher confidence levels, improved self-esteem and in living and maintaining healthy lifestyles.
Abraham Moss Warriors have also involved themselves in transforming a local park and established the Friends of Smedley Park in Cheetham Hill to make a more pleasant and enjoyable open space for the entire community. This involved busily planting lots of herbs and flowers as well as undertaking the development of science and nature areas.
As well as making a huge difference to their local community, they have also campaigned for change at a national level. When their Under 12s team request to miss a match for Ramadam was denied by Lancashire FA in October 2003, they led a campaign to enable footballers of all faiths to have time off for religious observance. Two years later this resulted in the first National rule change by the Football Association in 51 years.
Abraham Moss Warriors at the Heart of the Community received the Outstanding Community Contribution Award at Forever Manchester’s Birthday Party on Friday 18th March 2022.
The award is given in recognition of a person or group of local people who have supported their community over a long period of time, delivering sustained and meaningful impact for many, doing something extraordinary.
In 2023, we caught up with June as part of our Forever Mancuians Podcast series.
It is always worth remembering that, if you support Forever Manchester, you support all this.
The ability of local community groups and organisations to best help people in their community remains dependant on maintaining support for them.
To find out more about how you can get support Forever Manchester please email us at marketing@forevermanchester.com or telephone on 0161 214 0940.
Date added: 2nd December 2021
Last updated: 7th August 2023
