Under One Sky (UOS)
The idea for Under One Sky (UOS) came from founder Mikkel Juel Iversen’s personal experience of supporting two homeless friends for one year on his own initiative.
From 2012 to 2019, UOS delivered a handful of large Skywalk outreach events each Winter, and the volunteer base grew steadily from eight people to over 600.
Covid-19 was the incident which forced UOS to grow from a Winter pop-up campaign to a 24/7 lights-on operation. During the height of the pandemic their teams supported 600 people daily. In the first year of Covid-19 our teams served our homeless friends 75,000 times, and their volunteer base grew to more than 1,000 compassionate human beings.
The Burnt Chef Project
Launched in May 2019 The Burnt Chef Project was set up with the sole intention of eradicating mental health stigma within the hospitality industry.
TBC recently surveyed 1273 hospitality professionals which showed that 8 out of 10 (84%) of respondents had experienced mental health issues within their career and 46% would not feel comfortable talking about their health concerns with their colleagues.
Hospitality staff should be able to discuss the state of their mental health and gain support from their peers and employers. It’s important that although mental health can’t be seen it is regularly discussed and policies reviewed. This should be the new definition of ‘badge of honour’.
Together we can burn away mental health stigma within hospitality once and for all.
Elena Baltacha Foundation
When Elena (Bally) retired from tennis in 2013 after a great performance at the US Open Grand Slam, she had one obvious goal: getting more children to play tennis through their free tennis experiences and sessions through EBAT.
After Bally’s passing in 2014, The Elena Baltacha Foundation (EBF) was established to harness the generous fundraising and outpouring of support from the world of professional tennis and the general public to enable the great work that Bally started to continue. Although the EBAT does not exist anymore, promoting tennis through free sessions and experiences is one of the Foundation’s focuses.
The EBF team also commits to advising and supporting parents with free advice when making decisions about their children’s tennis experiences. The team also offers motivational and inspirational opportunities through events and experiences whenever possible, many of these are supported by the tennis world governing body (The WTA).
EBF has links with Sarah Borewell who runs Tennis Smart, and is now very much involved in creating links for players who want to find tennis scholarships in the USA. SS4B is also now a very big focus for the Foundation, EBF Chairman, Nino Severino said “One of our major charitable objectives is so to holistically develop the wellbeing of young people. We are committed to offering an extremely high-quality personal development programme that connects young people with the virtues they are building through sport. It also offers monthly components that Athletes can follow, with an accompanying workbook. Our athletes are invited to virtual and face to face events, with complimentary Zooms to support learning and development.
