Location and general information
Gender Equality - 
Personal development - 
Strengthening partnershipsContext
More than 20 million children worldwide (2.1 million in Europe; 3.5 million in Latin America and Caribbean) are separated from an imprisoned parent, an experience that often causes children overwhelming sadness, grief and anxiety, in addition to the pains of stigmatisation and shame. There are few programmes structurally embedded within prisons that support children with imprisoned parents. Their rights and best interests deserve much greater attention from governments and society at large.
Project goals
GWMD uses football as an instrument for awareness-raising and societal progress with three main objectives:
- To defend the rights and best interests of a particularly vulnerable population representing more than 1% of the world child population.
- To support children's wellbeing by strengthening the child-parent bond imperilled by a parent’s detention.
- To foster inclusion and empower children, despite the existence of prison walls and by working with prison authorities.
Project content
GWMD supports the all-important child-parent bond by bringing families together for a day of play, hugs and laughs. It builds on a model first developed in Italy and recently broadened in 2023 and 2024 to 10 other European nations as well as India. In 2025 we plan to expand to Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, for a total of 21 countries. We apply the same methodology everywhere to ensure that child rights, child participation and child safeguarding remain paramount.
Partners
