Advancing education and opportunity through Rugby

The work of Atlas in the US has been a great success, so much so that we will shortly be starting a US office. We will let you all know about this as it develops.

The project we fund in Memphis is going from strength to strength and expanding beyond its original school to more communities. The original players in the programme are now graduates and giving back to others in their communities. 

It is always a joy to meet these young men and women, and we are delighted that we will be bringing two of them to the UK to talk at the Atlas annual dinner on Park Lane in London in September. 

Then in October, we will host our first reception in New York, with a small band of our strongest US supporters and friends. This will be shortly after the start of the Rugby World Cup in Japan, so for rugby lovers, it will be a fun time to catch up and share thoughts on the favourites and dark horses.

The Atlas Foundation Chairman, Jason Leonard was pleased to be able to meet up with the coach and some of the graduates from the Memphis programme when they played in the Las Vegas Sevens invitational tournament at the start of March. 

Jason was joined by BBC rugby commentator Ian Robertson, and a fellow former British Lion, indeed former Captain of the British and Irish Lions, Gavin Hastings. These three rugby legends joined a party of guests at the Las Vegas Country Club on the first day of the Sevens for a charity golf match, raising funds for our work in the US and South America. 

Thanks to the generosity of a number of sponsors and donors, we raised $30,000 from the event. 

Links:

• photo album of our time in Vegas