Knockout Minds was a knockout success

Earlier this year, we were excited to launch Knockout Minds - a project specifically focused on helping men in Luton improve their mental wellbeing.

Over the last month, our Community Connector in Luton, Leela, has been undertaking an evaluation of its success - and we are delighted that it appears to have exceeded our hopes and targets.

Across the 24-week project, an average of 54% of attendees described their mood as 'good' or 'great' before the classes, compared with 84% after classes. The mix of physical activity (boxing sessions) with mentoring and companionship has helped the attendees improve their mental health.

We are hoping to expand the project further in 2026 - watch this space.

Continuing to tackle radicalisation 

We are delighted that in the last few months we've been able to start working formally with Nick Daines, an expert in educating on extremism and radicalisation.

At a time when tackling misinformation, online safety and violent extremism is top of the national news agenda, the work that Nick is doing as part of our training sessions with young people is absolutely vital.

Earlier in December he headed to the Seghill Campus of Northumberland Skills to speak with young people studying construction.

We've got a series of further training sessions coming up in early 2026. If you'd like to find out more about our work in this area or invite us to visit your settings, click here.

Our Adeel heads to Scottish Sports Awards

Our Community Connector in Glasgow, Adeel's work to bring communities together in the city through the sport of Kabaddi was highlighted at last week's Scottish Sports Awards.

While he unfortunately didn't walk away with an award, it was great to give his vital work more profile in this prestigious national sports awards ceremony.

Adeel will be continuing to expand his work with young people in 2026 and Groundswell will continue to support the expansion of Kabaddi in Glasgow.

If you want to find out more, email adeel@groundswell.world.

Spreading the word on financial freedom

We've finished 2025 with some great networking opportunities - the first of which was in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the start of November.

Our founder Hadiya was invited to speak at Satsconf 2025, where she spoke about the vital role that Bitcoin can play in empowering minorities, immigrants, women and people in the Global South.

She was also invited to speak at the Bitcoin Africa conference in Mauritius earlier this month, and hosted a networking reception, fostering contacts from organisations across the world to support our work further in 2026.

Find out more about our work on financial freedom here.

Christmas cultural market takes place in Manchester

Our Community Connectors across our areas of operation have been working in their communities to mark the festive season in a variety of ways.

Angela in Manchester was no exception - and Groundswell was delighted to be an official supporter of the HQ Winter Cultural Market in Moss Side on Saturday 13 December.

The event was an opportunity for local residents to experience arts, crafts and food from a range of multicultural backgrounds represented in the area.

Well done to Angela for her hard work supporting this vital community-building event.

Download our Kindness Mapper app!

The Kindness Mapper is now available on a new web platform and we have also made it available as an app via the App Store and Google Play Store.

As well as finding out what's happening in your local area, there's a brand new feature that allows you to donate to organisations you support.

Lots of feedback we've received over the years has been that people would find our mapper easier to use in app form, so we are really excited to finally make that a reality. Find out more about the map here. Download for iPhone here and on Google Play here.