2024 has been a remarkable year for Fight for Peace, marked by growth, impact, and now, a double triumph at the prestigious Newham Chamber of Commerce Business Awards. We caught up with our Business Development Director, Tom Barratt, to hear about the awards night and why these accolades mean so much to our organisation.
“Last Thursday, Manuela (Fight for Peace Partnerships Manager) and I had the privilege of attending the Newham Chamber of Commerce 2024 Business Awards. We’d been shortlisted for the Charity of the Year award so we joined nearly forty other organisations that were all hoping for success in our respective categories.
It was a glitzy ‘black tie’ affair, with the Mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, as the guest of honor attending along with around 250 other attendees.
This year’s awards was their most competitive yet, with more entries than any previous year. However, to our delight, we won our category!
We were invited on stage to receive our award, have photos taken with members of the Chamber’s Executive team, and had the opportunity to say a few words about Fight for Peace and the importance of our work.
Ours was the penultimate award category so, just as we returned to our seats, they started to announce a special award: The John James Business Of The Year Award, which marks the most outstanding organisation among the twelve award category winners.
And guess what…we won that too (along with a giant cheque for £1,000)!
Scooping two awards at such a prestigious ceremony, alongside so many brilliant organisations, is a huge honour, but it’s also due recognition for the hard work, dedication and transformative impact of our brilliant team and the young people that access our services.
This wasn’t our only win of the year. In August, we won the Outstanding Initiative in Sports Development award at the 2024 Stratford Rotary East London Community Heroes Awards.
The award celebrates sporting initiatives that encourage widespread participation, foster inclusive, supportive environments and enable everyone to engage in sports, and we were recognised for our role in promoting physical health, improving mental well-being, and enhancing social skills. Our Sports Development Manager, Silvino, collected the award.
Winning the awards has been a pleasant surprise but they have not happened by accident. We purposely committed time and effort this year in identifying relevant awards and categories, and formulating strong cases for success. We did this because they help to raise our profile with external audiences like politicians, peers, funders and potential partners, but (most importantly) they also help to instill a stronger sense of pride among our teams.
With all of these awards, we are going to have to build a new trophy cabinet. They’ll look great alongside our soon-to-be-won hoard of sporting trophies!
I am immensely proud of everything we’ve achieved this year: our awards, our partnerships, our impact, and especially the satisfaction among young people. I sincerely hope that everyone else is too.”
