UNICEF has teamed up with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private businesses, government agencies and football superstars to establish educational and recreational programs around the world that involve football. In a wide variety of countries and settings, the game with the global appeal is a tool for engaging young people in a positive future.

The Balkans

What's the long-term key to peace and stability in the Balkans? Football. Football?

That's the answer from organizers of the ‘Open Fun Football Schools.’ They say that when ethnically and religiously diverse staff and children participate in week-long football training camps, the team spirit engendered by the sport helps negate ethnic and political divisions. And so far, the football schools have done just that, even for participants who come from openly antagonistic segments of society in the Balkans.

There are currently 109 football schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Yugoslavia. Approximately 22,000 boys and girls aged 8-14 have taken part in the Open Schools. The programme, which was originally developed by the Danish Football Association, emphasizes the social and playful aspects of the game in addition to its technical points. The schools, says project initiator Anders Levinson, are charged with positive energy and the spirit of camaraderie.

"Why are we so concerned with the playful and fun elements in the game?" asks Levinson. "Because football touches everyone who tries it and makes us open up to each other; because the ‘good game’ is a tremendous tool for managing conflict; and because the good game, by its very nature, features the rules of sportsmanship and the democratic values that are so important to the social and political scene today."

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, aid workers from UNICEF and Save the Children have set up recreation areas for children in refugee camps so they can seek some semblance of normalcy in play.

Football has become a favorite. Although girls generally play separately from the boys, they openly play football too, and they can sometimes even be seen kicking the ball around with a male classmate.

In a country where the former Taliban rulers forbade kite flying as well as the mixing of the sexes, some aid workers say these young footballers are the first children they have heard screaming for joy.

	Read more

Brazil

In Brazil, football is a national passion. So, in a country where 2.9 million children work, and 1.3 million are not enrolled in school, a variety of initiatives use football’s popularity to help get young people off the streets and into the classroom.

A program called ‘Spaces of Hope’ reaches out to poor children in violent slum areas in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. ‘Spaces’ offers these young people football as a fun activity that can be a healthy and productive outlet for teens in difficult circumstances. It also offers programs in music and theater, libraries and computers with free Internet access.

Two members of the Brazilian national football team have founded centres for at-risk children that combine study and sports. The centres provide daily lessons in a wide range of subjects, from English to computer literacy, and the school day ends with a game of football.

	Read more

Ethiopia

"I am crazy about football," confesses 20-year-old Yidnekachew, who coaches the Tabor Wegagen football team, an initiative of an anti-AIDS NGO called the Tabor Wegagen Association. The team promotes football as a healthy, empowering and fun alternative to unsafe sex, drugs and violence.

In economically depressed Ethiopia, football offers one of the few healthy diversions for young people suffering from the country's high unemployment rate and limited educational opportunities.

"We compete against twelve other clubs," says Yidnekachew. "This keeps the boys off the street and out of trouble. They do not chew chat or do other harmful [things]. This is important during school holidays, especially over the long summer break." Players have become so dedicated to the sport and the cause that, when there's no money to buy football boots, they even play barefoot.

The Tabor Wegagen Association uses the football matches to spread AIDS awareness messages. The group also trains team members to be HIV/AIDS peer educators.

"Poverty and economic hardship make it very easy for young people to feel insecure about their future," says Ibrahim Jabr, a UNICEF representative in Ethiopia. "Instilling self worth and self-esteem is therefore critical for the success of HIV/AIDS prevention among the youth. When a person feels that their life has value and meaning, it is much easier for them to correct or change habits that may put that valued life at risk.

	Read more

Georgia

In the eastern European country of Georgia, more than 46,000 children from 2028 schools have participated in regional football tournaments sponsored by UNICEF, businesses, NGOs and government agencies. These ‘Children and Youth Football Championships’, which began in 2001, are designed to promote a healthy lifestyle for young people. The message for kids: Smoking, drinking and taking drugs can’t compare to the extraordinary high of kicking a winning goal.

Honduras

Just before the teams take the field for Honduras’ national championship football game, another, more unusual football match takes place. This game is between teams called ‘The San Pedrano Football Club’ and ‘Death United’, with the latter fielding players named ‘Infected Syringe’, ‘Drugs’, ‘Infidelity’, ‘Promiscuity’ and – in the attack positions -- ‘HIV’ and ‘AIDS’. On San Pedrano’s side, ‘Knowledge’, ‘Abstinence’, ‘Fidelity’ and ‘Condom’ fight back hard.

Played out before a packed stadium of 35,000 football fans, with more than two million watching from home on television, the match is a carefully scripted show called ‘Let's Score a Goal against AIDS’. Put on by Comvida, a local NGO backed by UNICEF and the Honduras Ministry of Health, the show dramatizes how easily HIV/AIDS spreads, while demonstrating how individuals can protect themselves from the deadly disease.

"We believe it's very important to take the prevention message to the sports arena, because of the great numbers attracted by these events,” says Juan Ramon Gradelhy, Comvida's director. “What we try to do is entertain the fans, taking into consideration their interests, and at the same time pass on our message about the problem of AIDS."

"The Comvida show is good because it creates awareness amongst us, the public,” one Honduran football fan agrees. “It's a good initiative for anyone exposed to HIV."

Kenya

At half-time during a game of football in a district of Nairobi, Kenya that is one of Africa's most overcrowded and poorest neighbourhoods, 15-year-old Kennedy Arinda teaches his peers about girls, safe sex, relationships and AIDS. One in five residents of the district, Kibera, are HIV positive. Thousands have already died from AIDS, leaving some 50,000 orphans behind.

"A lot of the boys here start having sex as young as 10. So I advise them to abstain from sex," says Kennedy, an AIDS orphan who now lives with his grandmother. "The most we can do is get young people together to create awareness about HIV and AIDS. Some of them listen, which is good. My hope is that my friends will be faithful to their girlfriends and not be promiscuous. Because if they do go to discos and sleep around a lot, they'll get AIDS."

Kennedy and his helpers also visit local bars and barber shops to distribute condoms and spread the message about safe sex and abstinence.

	Read more

Liberia

In Liberia, Rotary International sponsors a project called ‘Child Well-Being Promotion through Sports’, with the backing of UNICEF and football superstar George Weah.

The project uses football as a way to bring attention to the poor health conditions of children in Liberia. The country also hosts a national children's football tournament.

Each Saturday morning, scores of youth gather to participate in the sports, drama and music programmes that are among the Support to War Affected Youth (SWAY) projects UNICEF funds. Some 6,000 young people have benefited from these programmes, which are aimed at providing war-affected youth with life skills, as well as outlets to help heal the countless emotional wounds of conflict.

	Read more

Sudan

They call themselves ‘The Child Soldiers,’ but this is not an army--it's a football team. UNICEF has helped initiate a football programme for some of the 2,500 child soldiers airlifted out of conflict zones in southern Sudan.

The football games help these young former combatants work through their aggression in a positive setting. The play helps them to re-connect to their childhoods and to civilian life. The programme also helps the boys build self-esteem and talk about their experiences on the battlefield.

The airlift of child soldiers was the result of a personal promise the commander of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army made to UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy in October, 2000. It is the largest effort of its kind to date.