The People’s Champion has taken his message far beyond Belfast — and into the heart of Palestine.
There are plenty of places a professional boxer can travel to in search of a fight.
Tyrone McKenna chose to travel into the middle of a warzone to help a people ravaged by war.
The outspoken Belfast fighter recently spent time in Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, working alongside other volunteers in the community gym based inside the Lajee Centre.
What he found there has left an impression to last a lifetime.
For McKenna, boxing was never solely about winning titles. He has always been a fighter that has put the fans first as seen by countless toe to toe wars he has waged inside the ring. In Aida, he took those principles to an entirely different level.
Where McKenna found himself volunteering, the Lajee Centre, a grassroots community organisation established inside Aida refugee camp in 2000 with its main aim to provide the people of the camp with cultural, educational, social and developmental opportunities to help them thrive and grow in the community. The centre provides a remarkable range of activities for local people, including sport, music, dance, circus, photography, education and community health programmes.
McKenna saw that passion first-hand.
“In Aida refugee camp, the people are unbelievable.”
At the heart of the project is a simple idea: give young people somewhere to go, something positive to focus on and a community in which they can belong.
“They do music lessons, they do football, they do circus, they do dancing, musical instruments, they do photography,” McKenna explained.
“And they also teach kids how to read and write and stuff like that. There’s gym there as well for everyone to go to, which is being used as a boxing gym, and they’ve really took to boxing.”
BOXING IN THE SHADOW OF OCCUPATION
The circumstances surrounding those young boxers are impossible to separate from their sporting lives.
Palestinians in Gaza continue to face catastrophic humanitarian conditions, while access to basic rights like healthcare, water, sanitation and protection services remain severely disrupted by the IDF.
The United Nations has gone further, concluding that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and reporting that Palestinian children have been subjected to killing, injury and profound trauma on an unprecedented scale.
But the suffering of Palestinians is not confined to Gaza.
Aida is in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians continue to live with military occupation, restrictions, raids, displacement and settler violence. UN reporting in 2026 has documented continuing displacement and attacks affecting Palestinian communities across the West Bank.
Against that backdrop, the importance of somewhere like Lajee becomes even more important.
For a child walking through the doors of the centre, the activities that are held can take that child away from the realities of war, even for a short time. And boxing has been a particular favourite of the children of the camp.
McKenna saw exactly that.
“They got a lot of kids there that love boxing,” he said.
“It’s just a keep-fit gym, so there isn’t the actual proper equipment that boxers would need to progress, but they’re trying their best.
“They’ve got one bag in it and they’re there every day training really hard, and they’re just great people that come in with smiling faces to the centre every day, eager to learn, eager to box.”
That image — children arriving with smiles, eager to train — is perhaps the most powerful part of McKenna’s experience.
Because in circumstances where normality has been repeatedly taken away from Palestinian children, sport can give them a small piece of it back.
“A BIT OF NORMALITY THAT EVERY OTHER KID SHOULD HAVE”
That is what McKenna believes the project can provide.
“But it’s an amazing place,” he said.
“It’s a place where the kids can come and really switch off from the outside world and just focus on training, having a bit of fun, add a bit of normality that every kid should have.”
Those words go beyond boxing.
The Lajee Centre describes itself as a community-based organisation providing cultural, educational, social and developmental opportunities for refugee youth and women. They provide free access to its gym for people from Aida and nearby refugee camps and they rely on fundraising to continue its work.
And there is a desperate need for equipment and facilities.
McKenna is helping to change that.
“And we’re trying to raise funds so that they can get more equipment and get a bigger room where they can put up more bags and maybe get a ring.
“Most of them don’t even have bandages and stuff, so we’re trying to supply that kind of thing”
AIDA ON HIS SHORTS
McKenna didn’t simply leave Aida behind when he returned to Belfast.
He carried it with him.
In recent fights, “The Mighty Celt” has continued to put the name AIDA on his boxing shorts, bringing the name of the refugee camp into arenas far beyond the West Bank. Most recently in front of the eyes of the world in Croke Park.
The symbolism has not been lost on those back in Aida.
A boxing glove cannot stop the genocide. A skipping rope cannot rebuild a destroyed home. A heavy bag cannot replace a school, a hospital or a family member who has been lost.
But sport can provide something human.
It can provide purpose.
It can provide a few hours where a child is thinking about footwork rather than fear.
It can provide a place where young people are treated not simply as statistics from a war, but as children with dreams, personalities and futures.
And it can show the people in Palestine that they are not forgotten.
THE FIGHT CONTINUES
Every penny raised goes towards developing the camp, purchasing equipment and supporting the Palestinian people who still have to live their under occupation.
McKenna has done everything to raise awareness of the work being done, including leaving his own family to live among the refugees while he volunteered.
To McKenna, the most important thing about the work in the Lajee Centre is what they do for the youth.
“For the kids,” McKenna says, it is a chance to “switch off from the outside world”.
“And have a bit of fun, add a bit of normality that every kid should have.”
Tyrone McKenna has proven his heart inside the ring several times, the world now sees he is an even bigger champion outside the ropes.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Readers who want to support the boxing project can donate to the campaign, helping them purchase equipment and develop the gym in the Aida refugee camp. You can donate through their website:
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