The Kaizen Foundation, a social improvement organization funded by Kaizen Gaming, has announced a new partnership with the Premier League football club Aston Villa to support the development of its “Play it Forward” community project.
The initiative, formerly known as the “Playzones Programme,” is designed to address social inequalities that create barriers to physical activity by improving access to sports facilities and opportunities for young people in Birmingham.
The core objective of the project is to fund new community-led spaces and finance 350 additional hours of activity on existing small football pitches located in the city’s lower socio-economic areas.
Through this collaboration, the Aston Villa Foundation, the club’s official charity, will provide its extensive expertise to empower local community groups.
This support will cover a wide range of operational areas, including grant applications, fundraising, marketing, governance, health and safety protocols, and risk management, helping to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project.
This partnership deepens the existing relationship between the club and Kaizen Gaming, whose brand, Betano, is Aston Villa’s main shirt sponsor.
The Kaizen Foundation, which focuses on societal, educational, and environmental causes, has a history of impactful collaborations, including a recent partnership with UEFA to promote inclusion through sport.
This new initiative combines the foundation’s global perspective with Aston Villa’s deep-rooted local expertise to create meaningful change within the Birmingham community.
Guy Rippon, Head of Foundation and Community at the Aston Villa Foundation, said:
The community and charitable sectors in Birmingham are going through their toughest period in recent history, with vast funding cuts and community need at its highest. The ‘Play it Forward’ project will empower the voluntary and community sector with their own ambitions to grow as self-sustained organisations, as well as reduce the gap in young people’s access to physical activity spaces in urban environments.
Panos Konstantopoulos, President of the Kaizen Foundation, said:
As an international foundation, it is a privilege to combine our global perspective with the Aston Villa Foundation’s local expertise to deliver meaningful impact here in Birmingham and exactly where it is needed the most.
