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Contributions from
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InWEnt Forum
Soccer can
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Soccer network with a social mission
One year on
01/2006 |
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Soccer network with a social mission
Football is a mass movement in many countries. Where players have no ball, they make do with a bundle of plastic or a tin can. Children and young people all over the world play street football – and that is why streetfootballworld wants to build bridges. Launched by Germany’s national soccer coach Jürgen Klinsmann as a Youth Football Foundation project, the Berlin-based organisation promotes street football throughout the world. It is all about the fun of soccer and the good things associated with the game: team spirit, learning from one another, pitting strength and skill without violence. It is about sports as a catalyst of social development and cultural communication.
The network’s projects have different thrusts but they share a single purpose: to help young people learn together, for life, through play. Smaller projects can present their work and draw inspiration from bigger ones. streetfootballworld assesses the various approaches, forges contacts between projects and acts as an intermediary for the comparison of notes. Around 80 initiatives are currently partnered with the network.
The internet portal www.streetfootballworld.org – which is accessible in four languages – ensures that exchange takes place. It provides a place for initiatives to post information about their activities, for projects to pass on the benefit of their experience, for experts to offer advice. The “global pitch” is open to street footballers, project organisers, scholars, specialist associations and international organisations.
To coincide with the 2006 Soccer World Cup in Germany, streetfootballworld is organising the first world cup competition for street football. At the “streetfootballworld festival 06”, teams from 24 projects will compete on pitches in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin in a celebration of the social dimension of football. Another key area of streetfootballworld’s work is “World Cup Schools – Fair Play for Fair Life” – a project involving 204 schools in Germany. Each one represents a different country, while a school in South Africa – soccer’s next World Cup host – represents Germany. The students act as ambassadors for the countries both on the pitch and in the public arena, exploring the various facets of the project motto inside the classroom and out.
As well as streetfootballworld, the Youth Football Foundation runs www.fussballD21.de – an internet portal for youth football. The Foundation was established in 2000 by Jürgen Klinsmann and other former German World Cup and European champions. Among those involved in the Foundation are former world cup winning athletes Franz Beckenbauer, Rudi Völler and Berti Vogts. The organisation’s primary goal is to promote young talent and harness football’s potential as a vehicle for social progress. (orb)
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