Football is the most popular sport in the world. It is recognised, understood, played and watched by people from all backgrounds and nationalities and it has the potential to unite people. Yesterday, India won the Street Child World Cup with a 1-0 win over Tanzania. The tournament was held in South Africa.
The tournament was set up to bring together street children from eight countries and four continents and for them to celebrate their potential and campaign for their rights to be recognised and upheld via the universal language of football. It was a seven aside tournament with the teams being made up of both boys and girls, aged between 14 and 16. During the 10 days the tournament was on, the children were able to get involved in arts projects and be creative with each other, having fun like most of the children we see in this country.
To coincide with the tournament’s closure there was a conference held for people from different professions to discuss street children’s experiences, rights and aspirations. The objective was to produce clear, practical recommendations on how to realise the rights of the world’s street children. It is to put forward a message to the World’s leaders that they have every right to a healthy and dignified life and under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children they should have that.
This is undoubtedly a fantastic and exciting idea. But did you know about it? I only accidentally became aware of this tournament. As far as I know it has had little to no coverage in the mainstream media for the two weeks it was on. I thought people ought to know about it and celebrate it.
Below I’m going to put the web address for the Street Child World Cup, a website where you can donate money for the street children of the world and also an article written by Nwankwo Kanu. An African football legend.
http://streetchildworldcup.org/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jan/03/nwankwo-kanu-african-cup-of-nations
http://www.casa-alianza.org.uk/
March 24, 2010 at 3:05 pm |
Football is the most widely supported sport in the world and should be used for more good causes, as its clearly a powerful tool. Ironic how it has the ability to raise money and support by its sheer nature, yet football is responsible for some of the highest wages for people who have no ‘useful’ skills (doctors, nurses, teachers, counsellors etc)
good blog, another example of human nature within football is portsmouths players giving up some of their wages to keep some of the staff, previously made redundant because of pompy’s financial mess, at the club.
safe
March 24, 2010 at 3:35 pm |
Another interesting piece Jonny, I hadn’t even heard about it. It’s an amazing concept, they should do the same with more sports. Sport can unite people from all backgrounds and ages, it could open up some doors for these kids too.
For the amount of money that gets pumped into this sport there should be more room for things like this.
March 24, 2010 at 5:36 pm |
This is a great idea and I’m glad you have brought this to everyones attention however I worry about the children after the tournament. I may be asking you questions you can’t answer but what happened to these kids after? Call me a cynic but they weren’t just used for a bit of good pr and then dropped back into the plight that they were in before the competition? Nonetheless I agree that football and sport in general should be used in a positive way like this more often. It doesn’t make the media because footballers shaggin other footballer’s ex girlfriends sells more papers, horrible but true. On a slightly different note but still relevant I read an excellent blog on the BBC about a league that contains only 6 teams – QPR, Man Utd, Fulham, Charlton, West Ham and Hereford. It is a league of teams made up entirely of kids with downs syndrome and I think is another example of what amazing work can be done through the medium of the beautiful game.
Here it is if you want to have a read…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrischarles/2010/03/doing_it_for_the_kids.html