Westdyke’s motto “Community at the Heart” doesn’t just apply to their work in the north-east.
The Westhill-based juvenile football club recently worked with the Lydia Wilson Foundation and sent seven boxes filled with old kits to Lagos in Nigeria.
The Lydia Wilson Foundation, is a local non-profit which was founded by Lydia Balogun-Wilson, and aims to ‘protect the vulnerable’ and improve living conditions in Africa.
Balogun-Wilson travelled to Nigeria to handover Westdyke’s kit, which they had accumulated over several season.
The club try to reuse their kit each season and pass them down to younger teams, but they were still left with shirts, shorts and socks to spare.
Westdyke’s donation provided a youth football team in Lagos, now nicknamed “Westdyke Nigeria”, with new kit.
They wore the kit in a tournament sponsored by the Westhill club, who also donated money which helped pay for trophies and participation medals.
Gillian Robson, who is the vice secretary at Westdyke and helped organise the donations, is delighted the club positively impacted another community.
She said: “It’s fantastic because it means we can re-use the kit and it’s not just sitting in somebody’s garage gathering dust.
“We were just thrilled to be able to help and to have a link with the foundation that is run by somebody in our own community.
“We are a community club and try to give back what we can. It’s great to show our kids as well that football doesn’t just have to be showing up, playing and going home again.
“I have a son at the club, and it’s nice that all of our kids at the club can see that, by playing for Westdyke, they’re helping others.”
Robson has just helped send four more boxes filled with football kits to Lagos, this time donated by Westhill Primary School.
She feels proud to have been involved in the initiative, and hopes Westdyke will keep working to help others outside of their own area.
Robson said: “I’m very proud to have played a small part of it. Every squad who has donated kit has played their part as well.
“I’m delighted that we have been able to provide a bit of help to vulnerable children and families overseas.
“This is something that we’ve started now and I feel like we could expand on it and keep it going.”
