Location and general information
Access to Sport - 
Children with disabilities - 
Personal developmentContext
Colombia has suffered internal war for more than 50 years. As many as 260,000 people have lost their lives and 7 million citizens have been displaced as internal refugees. After the peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla in 2016, people have returned to their homes. Ex-guerrilla combatants are now in reincorporation spaces, but relations with the local population are difficult. This project uses football as a tool to achieve reconciliation and peace between both groups, focusing on the children.
Project content
The project supports the peace process in Colombia by promoting human rights, coexistence and inclusion among ex-FARC combatants and the local community, while also preventing new violence, through football training and psychosocial interventions with the children. It will run for one year in four territorial spaces for training and reincorporation (TSTR: land given by the government to ex-combatants to help them reintegrate into society), benefiting 615 children of ex-combatants.
Objectives
- Promote healthy coexistence among ex-combatants and the community using football as a tool for social integration and to prevent the resurgence of violence.
- Promote the search for talent among the children of ex-combatants to encourage development through self-realization.
- Provide psychosocial support for the children of ex-combatants, their families and the community, in order to restore their rights, emotional integrity, and productive reintegration into civil and family life.
Project activities
- Collecting baseline socio-economic information
- Training and participation in local leagues (10 football training sessions per week in each TSTR)
- Psychosocial interventions with children and their families (eight psychosocial workshops per week in each TSTR)
- Meetings between the community and TSTR leaders
- Competitions and participation in various leagues
Expected results
- The majority of children from the TSTRs attend the training sessions and psychosocial workshops (75%).
- Civil society that lives around these TSTRs will accept the presence of ex-combatants in their community and are in favour of their reintegration into society (70%).
- Improved gender equality inside football groups (30% girls at least).
- Improvements among the children and teenagers diagnosed with various psychosocial issues over the course of 12 months (50% children with psychosocial problems due mostly to the civil war experience an improvement).
- Through football, the children develop as persons, learn about rules and are kept away from criminal activities; coaches act as mentors. Training is a way to reach the children and their families for psychosocial interventions.
Partner
