Anders Levinsen - Man. Director Cross Cultures 

20 – 22 October all CCPA-Balkan coordinators and staff attended an international conference organised by the Council of Europe on Discrimination, Racism and Xenophobia in Sport.

 

Following the conference it was again raised as an issue between the Balkan staff, that in Open Fun Football Schools we are doing what others are speaking about. But we often experience that we are not strong enough in communicating our messages to others beyond our beneficiary groups.

 

One point raised in this context was that the speakers on the above mentioned conference often presented initiatives comprising a total of max. 400 beneficiaries addressing only one topic. Open Fun Football Schools organised this summer 154 Open Fun Football Schools and street sport activities for a total of approx. 40,000 children and 6,000 volunteers. And our concept is so strong that in different places we used our activities as vehicle addressing many different social issues, e.g.. promoting peaceful coexistence, promoting girls football, providing mine awareness, promoting healthy lifestyles etc.

 

Perception & concepts
Again it was also emphasised that it is sometimes considered a problem for us that we not always use the same language or the same terminology than the common one used by donor organisations and on conferences as the one mentioned above. When they say “equal opportunities” we say “girls football”. When they say “discrimination and exclusion”, we say “friendship and sports cooperation”. When they say “preventing chronically diseases” we say “promoting healthy lifestyle” etc. Correspondingly it has always been a common principle to us that we try integrate and address these social challenges beyond the sport in our activities but with “positive ions”. 

 

Conflict management or …?
Along this line we have sometimes met people who consider Open Fun Football Schools a football programme and not a reconciliation programme as we say, because we don’t talk or manage the underlying conflicts at our Open Fun Football Schools. We of course strongly disagree with this perception. The core idea of Cross Cultures is that “the objectives of the organisation are primarily sought realized through projects rooted in interests commonly shared by the participants and cutting the lines of different cultures”. I.e. through our twin-city approach we bring people of different backgrounds together (bridging) and through our special fun concept and our many and joyful games we create an environment where people of different backgrounds can meet and have fun together (bonding). This is to say that we know by experience that a good and a joyful game stimulates positive relations between the participants – that is the underlying mechanism in our specific fun football/reconciliation concept.

Open Fun Football Schools PLUS
However, the discussions made us all agree that there is a need of enhancing our social profile of the Open Fun Football Schools in the coming season.

Thus, we decided that all Open Fun Football Schools in 2010 would be tailored and organised accordingly with a concept we named “Open Fun Football Schools PLUS”. The idea is that each school next summer should of course be build on the same core principles – the twin city concept, 30% girls participation etc – as we have today, but each school should further have its own tailor-made profile addressing a certain social topic. One school could for example address environmental issues whereas the neighbouring school could address healthy lifestyles.

In this context we identified four main topics we wish to further develop in the season 2010:

Environment/ “Things Talks”. We see a five-day Open Fun Football Schools that has special focus on raising awareness environmental issues. I.e. we wish to explore the possibility to follow up on the Open Fun Football Schools by organising a five-hour seminar for local P.E. teachers on the Things Talk initiative with the aim that the teachers should run a five-days Thing Talk course for their respective school classes – like we are already doing in Lebanon.

Healthy Life-style/Preventing chronically diseases. We see a five-day Open Fun Football Schools that has special focus on promoting healthy lifestyles through Sport and healthy food. The Open Fun Football Schools should be followed by events such as Fighting diabetes as we did for Novo Nordic and Media lab in Croatia this summer. Further it was suggested to develop materials for school classes.

Anti-Discrimination/”Open Fun Football Schools classic”: We see tailor-made OFFS should address topics such as preventing discrimination, racism and xenophobia in sports. As special follow up some fun football festivals could be organised between children from two opponent clubs (ex. Hajduk Split and Dynamo Zagreb) which could also include a parent’s workshop. Such activities would be a brilliant chance to further develop the cooperation with our UK-based partner organisation Kick it Out.

Equal opportunities (gender): Promoting girls football. We see Open Fun Football Schools specially dedicated to the promotion of the girls football – like we did in central Bosnia this summer. The girls football initiatives will further be followed by our Girls Football Network Seminars (nation by nation), our regional working group on promotion of girls football and a regional conference on promoting girls football.