Our 2025 Impact Report
We are proud to share our KRIMMZ Impact Report for 2025, highlighting what has been an incredible year for our community. Over the past year, we reached more than 16,000 people and delivered over 950 sessions across Bolton, providing girls, young people and families with opportunities to take part in sport, skills and wellbeing activities in a safe and welcoming environment. KRIMMZ Impact Report 2025 From football and netball to swimming, cycling and creative workshops, our sessions are designed to help girls build confidence, try something new and feel part of a supportive community. 2025 was also a very special year for us as we were honoured to receive The King’s Award for Voluntary Service, recognising the dedication of our volunteers and the impact of our work. KRIMMZ Impact Report 2025 We are incredibly grateful to our volunteers, partners, funders and families who continue to support KRIMMZ and help make our work possible. You can read the full 2025 Impact Report below to learn more about the difference we are making together.
KRIMMZ Founder Presented With Bolton Civic Medal by Mayor
Four volunteers have been awarded the Bolton Civic Medal. The medals recognise contributions to the community and were presented during a special reception at the Mayor’s Parlour. This year’s recipients are Khadija Patel, Stephen Tonge, Ryan Yates, and Jimmy Hark. Mayor of Bolton, Councillor David Chadwick, said: “Bolton’s volunteer and community sector is the envy of towns and cities across the UK. “Events like this are an important reminder of how lucky we are to have so many kind-hearted and generous residents who give their time to help others. “As Mayor, it was my great honour to formally present the Bolton Civic Medal to this cohort of worthy recipients.” Ms Patel was recognised for her work as founder of KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club, which provides a safe space for girls to build confidence, enjoy sports, and develop leadership skills. She also supports families during the cost-of-living crisis, offers bereavement support, and serves as a Female Muslim Chaplain at the Royal Bolton Hospital. Mr Tonge was honoured for more than 25 years of service to the Kearsley community. He supported the development of Stoneclough Community Centre and co-founded the Kearsley Youth Brass Band, which provides free instruments and tuition to children. Mr Yates, a former member of the armed forces, turned his experience with PTSD into a mission to support others. He founded Veterans Army CIC, which helps ex-service personnel and their families with mental health, addiction, homelessness, and employment. He has also delivered medical aid to Ukraine and volunteers with the Bolton Sea Cadets. Mr Hark was celebrated for his work as a personal trainer and leader of Nob End Run Club.
Bolton youth club honoured with The King’s Award 2025
A youth club has been honoured with the UK’s highest award for voluntary service. KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club, a volunteer-run organisation based in Bolton, has received The King’s Award for Voluntary Service for 2025. The award, equivalent to an MBE for voluntary groups, recognises outstanding contributions to the community. KRIMMZ helps girls and women through sport and community engagement to build confidence and develop skills. Khadija Patel, founder of KRIMMZ, said: “Receiving the King’s Award for Voluntary Service is a true honour and a reflection of the incredible dedication of everyone involved with KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club. “This recognition belongs to every volunteer, young person, and partner who has believed in our mission to empower girls and women through community, faith, and opportunity.” The club is one of 232 charities, social enterprises, and voluntary groups across the UK to receive the award this year. The King’s Award for Voluntary Service was established in 2002 to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and has continued under King Charles III. The 2025 recipients were announced on November 14, the King’s Birthday. This year’s winners include groups from across the UK, such as dog walkers improving their neighbourhood in Kincardineshire and volunteers offering flying experiences to people with disabilities in Hampshire. Representatives from KRIMMZ will be presented with an award crystal and certificate by Mrs Diane Hawkins JP LLB, Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, in the coming months. In addition, two KRIMMZ volunteers will attend a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in May and June 2026, alongside other award recipients.
BBC ‘unsung hero’ award for Bolton youth club volunteer
A leading youth club volunteer has been honoured as an “unsung hero” after helping bring a range of sports activities to her community. Khadjia Patel was chosen for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award’s “unsung hero” for the North West for her work with the Rumworth based KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club. Thanks to her hard work, the group now has more than 360 members taking part in sports including swimming, netball, football, skiing, yoga, cricket, archery, squash and fitness classes. Receiving her award from the BBC, Khadija said: “I feel proud but there’s a lot of work still to do. “Socialising and getting exercise, physical activity as well, it’s making huge impact.” She added: “It’s an honour and a privilege to be awarded this. “I just hope that I can make a difference to our community and its going to go a long way.” KRIMMZ was founded in Bolton in 2009 and since then Khadija has helped to build networks across the community, in particular helping to ensure that all members’ religious convictions are supported. She has helped to ensure that people joining from all walks of life feel welcome and accepted. Khadija has also built up strong relationships with groups like Snowsports England, the Football Association and the Lancashire Cricket Foundation. Cllr Rabiya Jiva, of Halliwell, said: “Khadija is a truly inspirational figure in the community and we’re so happy to see her recognised for the incredible work she does. “She’s done so much for so many people and this award is just one way of honouring her wonderful contribution. “Everyday she makes Bolton a better place and I can’t wait to see everything else that I’m sure she will receive in the future.” Khadija was nominated by nominated by Sporting Equals Partnership Manager Gemma Parry. She said: “The work Khadija has done in the Bolton and Greater Manchester area through her volunteer work is truly transformational.
The ‘unsung hero’ fighting for space for Muslim women and girls to play, pray and prosper
It’s a fact that is designed to shock. Most UK councils have spent more on facilities for dog waste than they have for teenage girls. This is according to ‘MakeSpaceForGirls’ which campaigns for facilities and public spaces for teenage girls. Put simply, that means the powers-that-be in this country are more concerned about where we put dog poo than on making sure the next generation of British females are fit and healthy, according to Bolton mum-of-two Khadija Patel. The 37-year-old runs Krimmz Girls, a youth club for Muslims girls and women and believes a major barrier to girls playing sport is the lack of green space availability in the UK. Patel said: “My goal for 2024 is to have green space access because it’s a known fact that there is more green spaces for dogs then there are for women and girls.” It’s just one of the crucial elements needed to support Muslim women and girls playing sport, alongside privacy and a place to pray. She said: “There are so many British Muslims out there that are not getting their physical element daily because there’s no provision in place for them. “So you know, like I said, there’s still so much work to be done to make to make it a norm. “It’s not a norm right now, we need to make it a norm.” Over the last 20 years this one-woman tour de force has helped thousands of youngsters get into sport and her work even won her the BBC Sports Personality’s North-West Unsung Hero award. But despite that success, it’s clear that Patel doesn’t just want plaudits, she wants change. “I just don’t want it to be a tick box exercise,” she said. “I don’t want them to come and say right we’ve had this conversation and we’re going to do this short term, no it has to be a long-term thing.” Patel’s club offers Muslim girls the chance to play football, archery, cycling, cricket and squash while also looking to start providing facilities to try skiing and horse riding. Khadija Patel with a representative from Calder Community Squash – Krimmz Girls instagram page Patel grew up in what she called ‘deprived Bolton’ as a young Muslim girl struggling for activities to do. She didn’t feel comfortable in traditional youth clubs and was desperate for a place where she could confidently express herself and try different sports. Fast forward 20 years and Patel runs the club which, she said, would have fulfilled her every need. Winning the unsung hero award was an incredible accolade for Patel, but her 2023 got even better as she won volunteer of the year and the Sport England Community Sports Project of the Year Award. Despite such recognition and praise, Patel remains humble and focused. Patel said: “I am proud don’t get me wrong, I am truly humbled you know, I’m honoured to have received all these accolades, but I still feel there’s still so much work to be done.” For Patel, religion is an absolute fundamental in her life. Her Muslim faith is a huge part in her unselfish and devoted attitude, and her determination to ‘give back’. She said: “It’s part of me as a person, part of me as my faith, yeah, it’s all I know, I don’t know anything else. “They asked me to speak at an event in Leicester about racism in sports and they said, ‘look, we’ll pay you’ and I said, I’ve never done anything paid but if you do want to give a contribution then it’s just going to go back into the club. I’d rather it went there and for me, it’s just that service I want to give back to the community. I’m so passionate about it, I just want to help.” One stigma which can surround the Muslim community is the idea that they’re hard to reach. Patel, however, feels this is completely unjust. Patel said: “We’re not hard to reach, we’re just not engaged enough. Members of the Krimmz Girls Youth Club trying archery“It frustrates me that there’s organisations that say Muslim women are hard to reach. No we’re not – we’ve just got to make sure the provisions are right and everything we need to respect our cultural and religious barriers that we face are in place. “Because it can be done and I’m a living example of that. We can do cycling and we can go play cricket and football and actually all the rest of it.” To create the correct environment, Patel believes that certain things must be in place, starting with privacy. “You need to have that so we can swim freely with women-only coaches, women-only lifeguards and we want a sports hub but it’s private,” she said. “We need some prayer facilities because, you know Muslim women need that space. “Put some Pakora’s on the table and you might just get some women that, you know, cause food always brings a crowd in.” Khadija Patel speaking at a Sporting Equals conferenceAs much as creating the perfect environment will encourage Muslim girls into sport, the current rise in Islamophobia is creating huge opposition to this. In a recent study, its stated that Islamophobia has risen 600% in the UK since the Hamas attacks in Israel in October 2023. Similarly, in a different study, ‘Tell Mama’ a UK charity, recorded 2,010 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October 2023 and 7 February this year. This was a huge rise on the 600 it recorded in the same period the previous year. Consequently, this is just making it that much harder for these young girls to take the crucial step away from their homes to play sport, says Patel. “Islamophobia is on the rise, racism and hate crime is on the rise and it’s stopping so many women, but it shouldn’t be like that,” said Patel. Another important element to creating the space for these clubs, or the variety of sports they offer is funding. Without the right funding these organisations
Khadija picks up yet another accolade from Cycling UK
A volunteer from Bolton has received yet another accolade for her impact on sport in her home town. Khadija Patel, who also received a BBC Sports Personality ‘Unsung Hero’ award in 2023, is the founder of the cycling club at Krimmz Girls Youth Club in Bolton. Her committed work to get Muslim women and girls to cycle earned her a place in Cycling UK’s ‘100 women in cycling’ list earlier this year. Now she has picked up another prestigious honour from the charity – a Real Yellow Jersey award. Cycling UK has awarded 10 hand-knitted yellow jerseys to 10 everyday heroes who’ve transformed their lives through cycling and their Big Bike Revival programme. Each jersey was hand-knitted in Tour de France yellow by the Seacroft Hookers and Knit-wits in Leeds – every jersey taking around 35 hours to make. It is more recognition for Patel for whom cycling has grown into a powerful movement, challenging stereotypes, inspiring Muslim women, and transforming lives in Bolton. She’s also inspired her own family – her two boys, both 11, cycle to the mosque for their daily prayers and they all go for family rides together. As the founder of Krimmz Girls Youth Club, set up in 2009, she was already a coach in multiple disciplines, from archery through cricket to netball. Patel reached out to Cycling UK in 2023 and applied for funding to run Big Bike Revival sessions, group rides, community events and maintenance sessions, with a focus on encouraging Muslim women to ride. At first, she faced challenges from the wider community, but she remained unfazed and over time, that’s helped normalise Muslim women riding a bike. It has helped encourage more and more women to want to join in. Krimmz is constantly having to expand their offering, and requests regularly come in to borrow bikes so people can take their families on rides, too. Krimmz has added a bike maintenance course, which helps the people leading rides on a voluntary basis, and they keep having to train more ride leaders. The club works with local schools, has started organising inclusive cycling sessions, and even men are asking to join now, despite the club being set up for women and girls and there being no male ride leaders. Patel said: “I was honoured to be recognised by Cycling UK for our efforts with Krimmz to empower women in Bolton to enjoy cycling. “Being awarded the Real Yellow Jersey alongside nine others nationwide, and to have been given the opportunity to speak in Parliament at the 10-year anniversary demonstrates the real impact our work with Muslim women is having. “We’re excited to keep welcoming women from all backgrounds to join our weekly bike rides.”
Sweaty Betty and Sporting Equals staff try archery in Bolton
Sweaty Betty and Sporting Equals staff try archery in Bolton The youth club is an Archery GB Project Rimaya partner. Project Rimaya (the Arabic word for archery) was developed by Archery GB with funding from SportsAid to support Muslim girls’ self-worth, health and opportunities to access a sport which is significant to them. KRIMMZ girls introduced archery sessions last summer after girls who attend the club showed an interest in the sport. Last year Khadija Patel, who set up KRIMMZ Girls, won the Unsung Hero award in the regional heat of the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year. This weekend trustees and staff got the opportunity to see the different sports that the group offers for women and girls on a daily basis including skiing, cricket, netball and cycling. They also got the chance to participate in archery. The women from both Sweaty Betty Foundation and Sporting Equals were amazed by the idea of introducing different sports to so many females in the community young and old. Some of the trustees had never picked up a bow and arrow and enjoyed having a go. Khadija said it was a “truly incredible” weekend with the partners and she thanked them for their support in getting the archery sessions off the ground for the local community. She added they hope to continue to offer the sessions with Archery GB. Khadija said: “It was great to see both the staff and trustees get involved in the sessions, having a go at the different sports offered, speaking to the parents and young girls. There was a lot of positive energy throughout their visit and we hope to continue our journey with that same energy.”
Founder of Krimmz Girls Club, inspiring ethnically-diverse women to cycle
Khadija runs Krimmz Girls Youth Club. She started cycling in 2009 for her own health and to manage stress, and discovered the joy and empowerment it brought. This passion led her to set up Krimmz Girls Youth Club, recognising a need for inclusive spaces where Muslim women could engage in physical activity comfortably. Since the club started, it has encouraged thousands of women from all backgrounds to get into sports. The cycling club at Krimmz Girls Youth Club focuses on breaking barriers – inspiring women from underrepresented, ethically diverse communities to enjoy cycling. Through group rides, community events, maintenance workshops and awareness campaigns, the club helps educate, celebrate and promote the benefits of cycling. The club empowers girls to discover their potential, embrace a healthy lifestyle, and build a strong community of like-minded individuals. Khadija Patel won the BBC Sport Unsung Hero award in 2023 for her tireless and inspiring commitment to getting the women in her communities active. “Krimmz club has inspired me to push myself to new limits and try something I never thought I could do.”
Krimmz Girls Youth Club Empowering Youth Through Cricket in Bolton
Krimmz Girls Youth Club Empowering Youth Through Cricket in Bolton Krimmz Girls Youth Club, a dynamic community organization in Bolton, is leading the way with its inclusive approach to youth development through cricket. Khadija Patel, a driving force behind the club’s initiatives, sheds light on their impactful work with the All Stars and Dynamos bursaries, catering to both boys and girls in the community. Founded as a volunteer-led initiative, Krimmz Girls Youth Club offers a diverse range of sports and enrichment activities for the Bolton community. Their cricket journey, which commenced in November 2021 with girls-only sessions, has witnessed remarkable growth and engagement. The collaboration with the Lancashire Cricket Foundation has been pivotal in expanding their reach and impact. Initially focusing on girls-only Chance to Shine street sessions, Krimmz Girls Youth Club ensured that the coaching staff met the religious and cultural requirements of the participants. Due to the escalating demand, the club also extended its offerings to include boys participation in cricket, further enriching the sporting landscape in Bolton. Khadija Patel said: “Having access to cricket for the local youth in Bolton has had a great impact with a variety of skills being developed, not just physical but confidence and self esteem too within the participants. We’ve had parents get involved with our sessions by volunteering and some who will be going on looking at formal qualifications” Krimmz Girls Youth Club is committed to continuing the growth and development opportunities for its participants. Following the initial 8-week All Stars and Dynamos sessions, the club is determined to explore avenues for further development. With dedicated club coaches driving progress and accessibility, the vision extends to expanding participation and potentially establishing a women’s team in the future, although the primary focus remains on nurturing the youth.