Kids Get into Good Fights for YES Charity's 30 Year Anniversary

YES Charity (Youth Experience in Sport) has partnered with global creative micro-network Iris to launch The Good Fight, a bold new campaign designed to raise awareness of the organisation’s work as it celebrates its 30th anniversary, with striking imagery by renowned photographer Nadav Kander.

YES provides vital financial support to sports clubs, youth centres and sports charities across East and North London, helping them create safe environments where young people can play, learn and grow. By funding access to sport, including boxing, the charity helps young people build confidence, develop resilience and unlock skills they’ll carry for life.

In preparation for the campaign, Iris spent months visiting clubs and speaking with club facilitators, children and communities involved to get inspiration – ensuring the work was grounded in real experiences and authentic stories.

Through powerful visual storytelling and Kander’s arresting photography, the new campaign puts the young people supported by YES in the spotlight, reframing the idea of ‘fighting’ as a metaphor for empowerment, resilience and self-belief. The campaign centres on the lines 'More girls should get into fights' and 'More boys should get into fights' – deliberately provocative statements designed to stop people in their tracks and challenge perceptions of boxing and sport.

The imagery features real young people from YES-supported boxing clubs, shown with post-training bruises and grazes. Rather than glorifying violence, the campaign shines a light on the charity’s mission to provide opportunities through sport and support young people to thrive.

The campaign is running across OOH sites in London, with additional activity across press, digital and social channels, directing people to learn more about YES Charity’s work.

This is the first campaign to launch following Iris’s recent rebrand, designed to reposition the agency at the forefront of modern marketing.

Rebecca Scown, CEO of YES Charity, said, “We’re a small charity making a big difference in communities across London – but we need more people to know about the work we do. As we celebrate our 30th anniversary, this campaign puts us on the map, and we hope it inspires more people to find out about the young lives we’re helping to change.”

​Katy Hopkins, executive creative director at Iris, added, “This is the kind of bold, unapologetic work Iris has always been known for – and exactly the sort of brave idea we’re proud to be putting out into the world as we embrace our new positioning. It’s all about using sport – and boxing in particular – to teach discipline, resilience and self-belief. That’s what YES does every day, and we wanted to reflect that in a campaign that puts the young people front and centre. It felt especially powerful to help mark 30 years of the charity’s impact with a piece of work that challenges perceptions and demands attention. Working with the legendary photographer Nadav Kander, we’ve created something that should make people stop, take notice.

“This campaign is not about provocation for provocation’s sake – it’s about making the invisible visible. We believe creativity has a responsibility to speak to the real challenges facing young people today. That means being brave enough to start uncomfortable conversations when the cause calls for it.”

​Nadav Kander, photographer, concluded, “I want to help the next generation – so when I was asked to take part in this project I didn’t hesitate. The world is unravelling, and this is the world our young people are inheriting from us. They live with the decisions that were made by us adults and the anxiety in children as a result is on the rise. I believe today’s youth are the answer – they are the ones that are going to change the paradigm.

“YES offers a platform for young people to grow in confidence and express themselves, and this was more than evident in the spirit of determination and defiance that I witnessed in the children I photographed for them.”

Iris collaborated with Kander, who shot the portraits pro bono, and secured donated media space through Ocean Outdoor to bring the campaign to life on a minimal budget.