Our Foundation & Work

We believe in the innate ability of martial arts to positively change lives and transform communities.

Through our specialist programmes and expert network, we enable structured martial arts training and engagement sessions to break the cycle of abuse and poverty, tackle knife crime and intervene in a wide range of social crisis-points – such as disability discrimination, violence against women and girls and male suicide.

We know that martial arts has the ability to have a positive impact within a diverse range of communities. Lessons are extremely inexpensive to facilitate compared with many other forms of intervention. Martial arts has a way of ‘cutting through the noise’ and reaching those otherwise left out by wider society.

With this comes the opportunity to create a safe space and an interruption to the typical cycles of abuse that occur ‘on the outside’. It is from this safe space that the Fighting Chance Foundation reaches those who need martial arts most, and facilitates the opportunity to change lives.

Explore Our Life-Changing Work

Scroll below to see the programmes we run.

We are almost entirely self-funded and receive no support from Sport England or UK Government.

Fighting Chance

Gift a Child a Fighting Chance Programme funds and supports young people living in poverty between 4-18 years of age to train completely free of charge in martial arts. The programme develops self discipline, resilience, determination, self-development and strength which many young people do not believe they hold.

We build on this work, providing mentors and reliable role-models for young people from more complex backgrounds. We also fund instructorship programmes for gifted individuals which helps break the cycle of poverty by providing access to a self-sufficient income. Our aim is to inspire future generations in their communities.

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Fighting Chance

#DitchTheBlade works to build awareness around the realities of knife crime, working at the root-cause of why so many young people feel no other reality exists. Using martial arts as a catalyst for change, we engage young people at risk of knife crime in constructive, disciplined martial arts training, building resilience and transforming potential.

We also distribute bleed control kits with life-saving catastrophic bleed control training to ensure more people stand a fair chance of surviving such a brutal form of violence.

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#PunchLikeAGirl

#PunchLikeAGirl tackles the unacceptable disparity between women & girls practicing and teaching martial arts, compared to those who are the victims of sexual or violent crime.

We empower women to get fit, learn self defence and build resilience in safe women-only spaces with instructors qualified in gender orientated barriers.

We're also working towards specialist referrals and workshops for women and girls who have been the victims of rape and sexual assault.

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Inclusive Martial Arts

Inclusive Martial Arts aims to plug the void in qualified disability-inclusive instructors in martial arts, making more classes and opportunities available to children and adults with physical and mental impairments.

We're working to develop accessible and funded coaching qualifications for equality and disability inclusion, whilst also promoting grassroots martial arts as a proven benefit to children and adults with disabilities.

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Inclusive Martial Arts

'Medication can be a lifeboat, but talking teaches you to build your own lifeboats whenever you need them'

Mantra focuses on creating a safe space for discrete man-to-man trouble sharing and support. We strongly believe this is key to improving male mental health and reducing male suicide rates.

Using martial arts as an intermediary, mantra provides a safe space and easy way for men and boys to open up about the struggles they face without feeling embarrassed or ashamed with access to qualified support.

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A summary of our work and programmes

Fighting Chance
Scholarship Programme

Our flagship programme, tackling childhood poverty and mentoring a new generation of change-makers.

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#PunchLikeAGirl

Our national programme that promotes participation among women and girls, providing a safe space to train and develop under specialist instructors.

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#DitchTheBlade

#DitchTheBlade attacks Knife Crime by teaching martial arts to engage young people in high-risk areas whilst funding life saving bleed control kits for public use.

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MANtra

Our first of a kind male-suicide prevention programme that aims to create a safe space for boys and men to talk about mental health and get support from trained instructors

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Inclusive Martial Arts

Our inclusivity programme aims to ensure disability is no barrier to safe participation in grassroots martial arts by providing support and education to community coaches.

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Our Key Areas Of Focus

Childhood Poverty

4.3 million children are currently living in poverty. That's 9 in a classroom of 30. That's not good enough, and we believe it underpins so many social and mental health issues faced by young people in the UK today.

Violence

Nobody should be the victim of a violent assault. We stand against violence of any kind, and work to provide intervention and awareness training to help those most at risk of harm.

Knifecrime

275 Police-recorded murders involving a knife or sharp instrument occured in the 12 months to March 2020. That's simply unacceptable, and we believe we can intervene to drive down this horrific statistic.

Male Suicide

Men are significantly more likely to commit suicide than their female counterparts, accounting for 6,507 fathers, husbands, brothers and sons since 2017. We are uniquely positioned to a male-heavy martial arts participant network and are working to reduce this number.

Disability Inclusion

Nobody should miss out on the chance to participate in safe grassroots martial arts because of a mental or physical disability. We think education plays a large part in the matter, and are working to train instructors and clubs on the best ways to ensure they remain open to all.