Busajo Campus: Equal chances through sport

Busajo Campus is social and educational project aimed at street children living in the Ethiopian city of Sodo and the surrounding rural areas. It supports rehabilitation, prevention and family reintegration, thereby helping the beneficiaries to regain their dignity and trust in the future. It is estimated that there are about 3,000 street children in Sodo.

Inside Busajo Campus, sport is promoted as an educational activity that supports people’s physical and emotional growth and a social activity that teaches people the rules of coexistence and community.

Project content

The support of the UEFA foundation will enable Busajo Campus to build a gym, changing rooms and bathrooms, to extend the use of its sports fields and facilities to children and young people in non-residential programmes and neighbouring communities, and to promote equal opportunities for boys and girls through the universal language of sport.

The gym will increase and diversify the sports activities available to improve motor and social skills, while enabling activities to continue even during the long periods of heavy rain that are typical of the Ethiopian climate. In addition, the changing rooms and bathroom facilities will enable to project to teach and promote day-to-day hygiene rules and good practices among Busajo Campus residents and other users.

The Busajo Campus project aims to encourage the socialisation and integration of resident street children, with the help of guests who have successfully integrated society (e.g. university students and children without any particular social problems) offering positive life prospects for those that remain socially vulnerable.

The project also offers educational activities to socially marginalised children living off campus, in order to offer an educational pathway to as many young people as possible and involve the surrounding community.

In this way, sport becomes an important social vehicle that creates strong emotional bonds and human relationships that encourage respect and tolerance.

Particular attention is given to the inclusion of culturally and socially marginalised girls, who need special care and attention both psychologically, socially and physically, and need to learn how take care of their own person.

Objectives

• Improve the socio-educational conditions of Sodo street children, permanently removing them from social exclusion and offering them better prospects, a greater sense of dignity and confidence in the future
• Teach minimum hygiene standards and improve conditions and practices among residents and visitors to the campus
• Improve the motor skills of children and young people and enable sports activities even during the rainy season
• Increase the interpersonal skills of boys and girls on Busajo Campus
• Promote equal opportunities between girls and boys, teach rules of tolerance and respect, increase children’s capacity for socialisation
• Encourage integration between children and young people living on campus and the surrounding community

Project activities

• Construction of a gym, changing rooms and bathroom facilities
• Educational sports activities for Busajo Campus residents using existing sports fields (volleyball, football, basketball)
• Other informal educational activities (recreation and play, agricultural activities) Busajo Campus residents
• Extension of the project to non-residents and inclusion of new indoor disciplines for residents and non-residents (gymnastics, martial arts)
• Awareness-raising and promotion of equal opportunities through sport

Expected results

• Construction of the gym to enable activities to continue year-round, even in the rainy months, to increase the range of activities on offer, to improve the motor skills of children and young people and to fight against diseases such as rickets in a more effective way
• Construction of changing rooms and bathroom facilities, promoting improved personal hygiene
• Delivery of an educational pathway that uses sport to promote equal opportunities for girls and boys and integration between street children living on campus and the surrounding community
• Beneficiaries: 100 street children (Busajo Campus residents) and 100 non-resident children (external users)

Partner