About Us

Hornstars Sports Club (HSC) was established with the aim of setting up a football team to engage the local Somali youths who were loitering in around the Harlesden, Stonebridge and Wembley area. Hornstars were commissioned by Neighbourhood Renewal and the home office to carry out extensive research on the conduct of the Somali community and in particular the dis-engaged young people, thus the following provisions were established.

Extra Splash Summer programme funded by the home office was conducted in which it enabled young people from a refugee background to partake in summer long football training, matches and residential to Torquay.

Celebrated 10 years

Breaking Barrier report was published which looked at training and support for us along with resources. The approach and the associated case study research sought to determine whether the additional capacity allowed our organisation to ‘work outwards’ from our constituency and create interaction between different groups.

Worked with the Laureus Foundation in the ‘breaking the cycle of violence’ in which Daley Thompson along with Academy members, Lord Sebastian Coe, Hugo Porta, Sean Fitzpatrick and Matthew Pinsent visited the project on July 13th 2009 before going to 10 Downing street to hand in their report. It was a great success and the Academy members were very complimentary in the project and saw the effects sports has on engaging disadvantaged young people.

Launched the Positive futures in which we turned a failing project with a red rating which is the bottom mark to a green and amber which is second from the top mark. That illustrates what positive activities we have been running in Brent for the past which was externally verified using sophisticated monitoring systems which provided the Home Office with a detailed oversight of the programme’s impact at both micro and macro levels.

Celebrated 20 years

Hornstars SC changed its name to Connect Stars. The decision was made in response to the needs of the community it served. Connect Stars would allow the organisation to expand and reach a wider group of people who were experiencing social exclusion through its varied programmes.