Meet our Young Persons Trustee - David Howells

The Foundation is made up of a Board of nine Trustees, who are responsible for driving its ambitions forward. This feature introduces - David Howells who is our Young Persons’ Trustee and is passionate about supporting more disabled people to achieve their ambitions through sport.

18-year-old David, has just started studying for his BA (Hons) Sports Management at Bournemouth University. He is combining his studies with playing and training regularly with the England Visually Impaired Cricket team.

Born and bred in Milton Keynes, David comes from a very active family and has always played a lot of sport. As his eye sight deteriorated he found it more difficult to access the variety of sporting opportunities that he wanted to.

Cricket was the only sport within his local area that catered for visually impaired participants. His dedication to playing cricket paid off when David was selected for the England Academy at 14 years of age. Although he hasn’t played internationally yet, he was won the national league with his county team and a national visually impaired T20 tournament as well. David is hoping that his England debut won’t be too far away.

The lack of sporting opportunities locally was a barrier to David playing sport to the competitive level that he wanted to. He also found it difficult initially to tell people about his visual impairment and how it impacted him. David preferred and still prefers to focus on his ability, rather than his disability.

David put himself forward as a Trustee of the Foundation because their ambitions resonate closely to him and his experiences. He wants to share insights and understanding to some of the barriers to engagement through connecting with different networks and his peers.

“I really hope that in this role, I will be able to offer young disabled people a voice on the Board and beyond. I want to be able to make a difference.”

Currently David is working on a number of projects with the Foundation, including developing ideas to launch the Foundations’ Instagram channel and an inclusive PE project. As well as representing the views of young people, he also hopes his work will help to develop his own skills, knowledge and confidence.

David will be speaking at the Include Summit on 8th March – talking about his experiences as a young trustee and disabled sportsperson.

If you would like to connect or feedback some of your experiences to David please get in contact by emailing us.