Iconic Reuters sporting photography from the Action Images picture library is being used in a new project which aims to tackle the three biggest challenges facing the UK’s ageing society.
Reuters has released more than 90,000 sporting images, delivered in 24 crates, to The Sporting Memories Foundation which runs groups across the UK which bring older sports fans together to tackle dementia, depression and loneliness. The extensive Action Images picture library collection contains photographs of some of sport’s greatest heroes and most illustrious moments dating back as far as the 1930s, with negatives covering football, boxing, tennis, athletics and many other sports.
One crate, stamped ‘Football Association, Lancaster Gate’, contains more than 100 photographs of soccer great Pele. Others contain images of cricket, rugby or motor racing.
Over the next two years, the collection will be digitised by The Sporting Memories Foundation, who are recruiting volunteers to help with the huge task of cataloguing and scanning the images. Sports fans of all ages will be encouraged to get together and team up at local hubs, with each image needing to be cleaned, scanned, tagged and added to the online archive. Each of these images will in turn be used in The Sporting Memories Foundation’s work to help people over the age of 50 age well and remain as healthy as possible.
If you are based in the UK and interested in volunteering for the project you can sign up here
Media Contact:
pete dot biggs at thomsonreuters dot com
[Reuters PR Blog Post]