Community Action
A community based football festival in Bedfordshire is set to bring communities together to break down cultural barriers and to encourage access to careers in sport for disadvantaged groups through partnerships with local colleges and sporting associations.
The festival will also raise awareness of the importance of organ donation within ethnic minority groups.
Memorial Foundation
The Mandip Mudhar Memorial Foundation's annual football tournament is at the cornerstone of the work of a band of friends who have selflessly fought for seven years to support charitable causes in the name of the late Mandip Mudhar, who died from injuries sustained in a car accident. The Foundation was set up in 2001.
When hearing Mandip would not recover consciousness after his accident, his parents made the difficult decision to donate his heart and his kidneys to those in need of them. Mandip's heart was donated to a middle-aged man and his kidneys went to patients on dialysis: a young mother and a 14-year-old girl.
Bringing people together
His family and friends have each year preserved his memory with an annual football tournament that brings together people from the Home Counties and beyond to raise money for local charities, as well as the Royal Free Hospital in London, where Mandip was treated for his injuries.
His elder brother Bobby Mudhar, along with friends Shahaid Mahmood, Baljinder Ahir, Kuldeep Singh and Majid Rashid have, like in previous years, been working to bring together this year's tournament.
Bobby and his multi-faith team have shown immense determination and a real spirit of togetherness, not allowing their commitments away from the Foundation to prevent them from helping it reach its goals.
Get involved
This year, the tournament takes place on Saturday 4 August 2007 at PlayFootball.net, Stopsley High School, Luton.
Last year's tournament attracted 26 teams from as far as Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Leicester.
Beneficiaries this year will be local causes that include 'Friends of Bright Eyes', a charity that provides support activities for children with disabilities.
Bobby, Shahaid, Baljinder, Kuldeep and Majid were each the recipients of the Mayor of Luton's Citizenship Award in 2006, as well as being nominated in the 'Best of Luton' Awards that same year.
For further information on how to support or get involved in the tournament, or with the Foundation's work, please contact Amar Azam by email here.
