“We play football to become better people – not necessarily better footballers.” This is the main motto of the ‘Goal Sti Ftohia’ (Kick Out Poverty) project, which is operating in Greece in the midst of an unprecedented socio-economic crisis. This project brings together the poorest of the poor – people who are experiencing social exclusion at its most extreme. Homeless people, refugees and recovering drug addicts of all ages – men and women alike – get together at least once a week to play football. For these people, playing football is not about winning games; it is about winning back their lives. This is Greece’s national homeless football team.

A photographer has been following the members of that team as they train together and seek to overcome their personal challenges and difficulties. He attempts to capture the players’ transformation as they go from being social pariahs to community leaders. Through football, their self-belief is gradually restored and the rest of society starts to see them in a different light. They are no longer outcasts; they are now regarded as fighters – as role models.

A programme of visits to refugee camps (also supported by the UEFA Foundation for Children) elevates them yet further to the status of community leaders. The team visit refugee centres, kicking a ball around with child refugees, sending out a message of joy and hope. They have all lost their homes, albeit the Syrian refugees have lost their entire country.

The camera follows the team from their weekly training sessions at a football ground in central Athens to the Homeless World Cup in Glasgow in summer 2016. After capturing their triumphs and tribulations in Scotland, it then follows them on to various refugee camps around Greece, watching them share the joys of the beautiful game with child refugees and anyone else who wishes to join in.

This project highlights football’s tremendous power to transform lives – in this case, the lives of homeless people living in extreme poverty. Through their participation in the Greek homeless football team, they are empowered, not just becoming socially active and rebuilding their lives, but establishing themselves as community leaders, leading by example.
This project is run by the NGO Diogenes, which also publishes the Greek street paper ‘Shedia’.

KICKFAIR seeks to bring children together, uniting refugees and non-refugees through their shared love of football. However, the KICKFAIR concept goes far beyond that. Playing the game is just an initial starting point, giving children the chance to share experiences, using football as a common language. By playing together regularly, children build trust, and that forms the basis for deeper relationships. KICKFAIR has developed various different modules, using elements of football to foster mutual understanding both on and off the pitch. Those modules combine regular games of football with workshops where participants answer questions such as “Where am I from?”, “Where do I feel at home?”, “What makes a home?”, “What do we have in common?”, “In what ways are we different?” and “How do we want to collectively shape our future?”

The overall objective is to foster inclusion by tearing down barriers between children that have built up as a result of inaccurate stories, incomplete information and unfounded fears. It is about dealing with diversity and seeing it as a benefit, while ensuring that everyone has equal opportunities to develop – both on a personal and on a professional level.

The main target group is schools, which are in need of complementary inclusive concepts that will help to ensure mutual understanding and equal opportunities for all children.

UEFA Foundation for Children extends its support to communities and schools in Jordan.

With the help of the Jordanian Ministry of Education, the Jordanian Football Association and streetfootballworld, the UEFA Foundation For Children and the Asian Football Development Project have provided training in non-violent communication and negotiation skills to 21 physical education teachers and football coaches, both men and women, in order help them to build positive relationships between students.

Early March, the one-week course involved teachers and coaches from 12 schools in the city of Karak, south of the capital, Amman. It provided them with the knowledge and skills necessary to run regular football activities for children and to use the sport as a platform for building self-esteem and encouraging social cohesion by facilitating interaction among children of different origins.

The course was led by streetfootballworld instructor Hiba Jaafil (former captain of the Lebanon women’s national team and current U17 and U19 coach) and former Jordanian national women’s internationals Maryana Haddad and Zina Al-Sadi still playing in the Jordan national team.

After the course, a tournament was held for 100 children from the 12 schools (50 boys and 50 girls, all aged 10 or 11). Through football, a language understood by all, children of different origins came together, cheered each other on, helped each other to win and built lasting friendships.

The programme will be extended to 24 other schools in the south of Jordan over the course of the year. In various joint activities and special events, children from the different schools will play alongside each other in mixed teams rather than against each other, to encourage mutual understanding and acceptance of cultural differences and break down stereotypes and other barriers.

A UEFA Foundation for Children photo exhibition highlighting the lives of children at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan was staged in Brussels on Sunday 10 April to help mark the UN International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.

The exhibition, showing how football can play a key role in giving meaning to the refugee children’s everyday lives, was part of a sports event organised by the Brussels Play 4 Peace (BP4P) organisation and held at the Stade Roi Baudouin in the Belgian capital.

Almost 4,500 children and young adults – boys and girls aged between 8 and 20 – are involved in sport, and football in particular, at the Zaatari camp. The UEFA Foundation supplied cameras to enable the children to be creative and portray life at the camp through a lens, thereby contributing to the exhibition and promoting it beyond the borders of the camp.

Alongside the exhibition, more than 20 different sports activities were offered to visitors, and proceeds from the day are earmarked for the purchase of sports equipment for homes and hospitals for children and young people.

A minute’s silence was held in memory of the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels, and balloons in Belgium’s colours of black, yellow and red were released into the air.

BP4P promotes the playing of sport and adherence to sport’s values as an educational tool for young people, and nurtures the belief that sport is a crucial vehicle for social stability and dialogue between different political, cultural and religious communities.

The UEFA Foundation for Children reflects UEFA’s wish to play a more active role in society, and makes use of sport to support humanitarian projects linked to children’s rights in areas such as health, education and integration.

The foundation’s objective is also to help children and safeguard their rights, as well as to promote access to sporting activity, facilitating children’s personal development and fostering the integration of minorities.

Football programme launched to educate children about the danger of landmines

The UEFA Foundation for Children is supporting the Spirit of Soccer project in Iraq, using a programme that emphasises the power of football to educate children about the dangers of landmines and explosive remnants of war. The project includes mine risk education, raising awareness of the danger and promoting behavioural changes.

The humanitarian consequences of violence in Iraq and Syria have been catastrophic. More than 2.2 million Iraqis – half of whom are children under the age of 18 – have been displaced, and are forced to live in camps without any formal education or social structures. One day, they will return home to regions polluted by the legacy of conflict, where landmines, unexploded weapons and ammunition, and improvised explosive devices will be a constant and deadly threat.

The funding provided by the UEFA Foundation for Children will support the training of 150 new football coaches, who will be taught how to deliver mine risk education to over 25,000 Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian children in 2016.

“Some of these children have experienced violence and trauma, often on a daily basis,” said Spirit of Soccer founder and CEO Scott Lee. “Football can do so much; whether it is giving them skills that could help them survive the war, or just giving them a reason to smile. When you play football, you live in the moment. If we can provide these children with a moment of peace, this will truly be a precious gift.”

José Manuel Durão Barroso, chairman of the UEFA Foundation for Children’s board of trustees, said: “The UEFA Foundation for Children places the well-being of children at the heart of its activities, especially vulnerable children who are suffering as a result of conflict. Given the dangers posed by landmines and other legacies of such conflict, it is absolutely crucial that young people are made fully aware. We applaud and fully support the Spirit of Soccer project on this vital education initiative, and we are very happy that football is once again being deployed as a source of happiness and hope.”

Note to editors:

Spirit of Soccer is an international non-profit organisation that uses the world’s most popular sport to empower and educate young people about the dangers of landmines and unexploded weapons in areas of past or ongoing conflict: http://spiritofsoccer.org/

Nearly 80,000 Syrian refugees – 57 percent of whom are children – live at the Za’atari camp, which is located in the Jordanian desert. The UEFA Foundation for Children, in collaboration with UNHCR and the Asian Football Development Project, is helping children and young people through sports activities, in particular football, to allow them to play and remain children in a situation of war.

This exhibition draws a parallel between three different aspects of children’s lives at the Za’atari camp.

Children at the camp have had the opportunity to show, through their eyes, how life goes on despite the particular context in which they are living. In partnership with a local NGO, these youngsters have benefited from training as photographers, and the UEFA foundation provided cameras to allow them to realise their own exhibition and promote it beyond the borders of the Za’atari camp. The aspiring photographers were very motivated to take part in this project. Using professional cameras was a massive experience for them.

Pascale Cholette, a French photographer who works for the Metasud and Future Learning agencies, felt the great contrast between her freedom and the refugees, who are captive behind fences. Captive herself as a result of her European vision and Western culture, she decided to use the lights of the desert to isolate the youngsters from reality, and to just simply focus on what they are – children.

Rawan Risheq, the Jordanian photographer, had a fascinating experience. She was granted access into mosques and homes, and visits to youth centres and playgrounds enabled her to understand how a refugee’s life is organised, and how the Syrians have adjusted after years in the camp. Many children were happy to be photographed. However, some would barely smile – they seemed like grown adults in children’s bodies. Rawan came across a great deal of talent and so many powerful expressions which held stories of survival within them.