Millwall Community Trust

On Friday 23 September we were present at the Lion Centre (which is the headquarters of the Millwall Community Trust) where an event was held where we talked about the impact that the Millwall team has on the community of the Lewisham neighborhood.

It is an association founded in 1985 (the year of the centenary of the history of Lions), and which since then has organized various initiatives to help the people living in the neighborhood to support them in the problems of everyday life.

The South London team has always been close to their people since its founding when they asked the FA to start their home games to allow port workers working in Lewisham and Southwark Docks to be able to arrive on time. to be able to enjoy the game.

This is a historic initiative that was organized to also take care of the mental health of the port workers, who were subjected to grueling shifts at the construction site during the week, and the game was the weekend's entertainment to be able to relax and recover from a week of fatigue.

The event that took place on Friday 23 September, organized by CEO Sean Daly (a person who has always been attentive to the needs of the Lewisham and Southwark community and who always organizes initiatives for everyone, from school-age children to adults with every type and for the elderly. In fact, before the start of the conference he was intent on supervising a soccer match between boys and girls with Down syndrome who enjoy a recreational moment in the Lion Centre gym), he saw in the front line the 'former president of Millwall Jeff Burnige (one of the founders of the Millwall Community Trust) and our friend lawyer Gianluca Sardi (whom we had already interviewed close to a Millwall home game this season), who illustrated to the audience present how Millwall F.C and the Millwall Community Trust impact the local communities of Lewisham and Southwark.

Among the various initiatives that Gianluca highlighted during his speech we report these:

The Lions Food Bank that was created during the pandemic caused by Covid19, which has helped the local community by serving more than 400 meals a day for the needy families in the neighborhood. This is an initiative that was created to guarantee one of the fundamental prerogatives of the individual which is to be able to guarantee a healthy diet for human beings. A prerogative that is regulated by the charter of fundamental rights of the united nations, which has become part of many constitutions and legal regulations including the English one.
An agreement made with the Recruitement Center of both neighborhoods to help young children and adults to find decent work.
The agreement with Lewisham College to guarantee children the right to study, education, training from a social, legal and sports perspective.
The Millwall for All initiatives that aim to educate people about equality, equality and against all kinds of discrimination right from primary school. For this reason Millwall was the first professional team to associate a women's team with the men's team. And very recently it was one of the first clubs to support the LGBT championship, allowing Milwall Romans to have a field in the neighborhood for training and for playing league home games.
Initiatives made to prevent juvenile crime and crime on the streets. And it is for this reason that an association called the Jimmy Mizen Foundation was born, dedicated to a boy who was violently killed in a bakery in Lee. The goal of this association is to prevent the use of knives in the streets, and to reduce the data of the statistics that see London as the city with the most killings on the street with edged weapons. Finally, an agreement was also made with a London prison, in order to have the prisoners reintegrated once they have served their sentences.
In addition to Gianluca, the conference was attended by Lewisham's Deputy Major Brenda Dacres, who highlighted how the Millwall Community Trust is important on a daily basis for the development of the Borough. But above all for the initiatives that also involve the municipality in a side-by-side collaboration, to renew and make Lewisham a dignified neighborhood free from any type of organized crime.
Also important was the intervention of Sir Simon Hughes Il Chancellor of the University of Southbank, who highlighted the importance of the Trust also at the building level, especially for the recent regeneration of some houses in the neighborhood and for the creation of new residential complexes in order to meet the housing emergency in the areas around "The Den".

Finally, the conference closed with a speech by former president Jeff Burnige who also highlighted the commitment of the Trust at an international level, with charitable initiatives in the African nations of Kenya and Botswana.

A meeting that has enriched us a lot and that made us understand that around the Millwall there are not only violent people or criminals, but also people who work at a good pace and with passion to support the inhabitants of the two districts where the stadium is located. , and make it an accessible and pleasant place to live in.