DADs return to Bosnia & Herzegovina for Foca 09
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PRESS RELEASE
11th May 2009
DADs return to Bosnia and Herzegovina for Foca 09
From May 19th to 25th 2009 the town of Foca in Bosnia and Herzegovina will host the second European event in the field of Development through Football. Teams from all over Europe will come together to present their work and celebrate the contribution of football to social dimension of the game. The event is being supported by the European Commission and is organised by the Berlin based streetfootballworld global network that DADs is a member.
The Hull based award winning Dads Against Drugs charity has again been invited to participate in the fast paced street football tournament in the Town of Foca. A team of four local girls will meet up with four boys from Liverpool in a partnership with Liverpool’s NACRO charity. There will be four accompanying team co-ordinators from DADs & NACRO.
Foca, located in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a well-known centre of football in the Balkans. Prior to the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995, Foca hosted an annual youth football tournament bringing together the biggest clubs from across Yugoslavia. With the outbreak of conflict, however, the tournament was disbanded and it was not until ten years after the end of the war that streetfootballworld network member Football Friends revived the tournament. Last year the inaugural European Street Football Festival was initiated that brought together youths from different Balkan communities and Europe. Following its success, the Foca festival has taken on a new positive networking dimension and will continue to share good practice and tackle important issues.
Wendy Broomfield DADs Foca 09 Team Coordinator said “we are really pleased to have been invited back again this year and the event is bigger and better than last year, this year we are taking four girls and look forward to working in partnership with our friends from Liverpool who have a football project supported by national charity NACRO. DADs continues to create international networking opportunities for its beneficiaries, supported by streetfootballworld and we are kicking forward a programme to continue with this work”.
Lucy Russell, aged 14 and pupil at Wolferton School said “it’s really exciting that we are going to the football tournament in Bosnia & Herzegovina and we are looking forward to playing fair play football and meeting young people from all over Europe”.
“For streetfootballworld, the festival in Foca is once again a great opportunity to meet with our network members, to showcase their marvellous local work and to promote football as a tool for social development”, says Vladimir Borkovic, Network Director at streetfootballworld.
During the entire event, the coaches and team co-ordinators are invited to take part in workshops and meetings on Development through Football, laying the foundation for a potential European streetfootballworld network and exchange programme. The young leaders in every team will be trained on intercultural and emotional communication and shall be prepared for a mediating role during matches.
DADs young leader William Broomfield, aged 20 said “we are networking with young leaders from 24 teams from as far away as Germany, France, Turkey, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia, there is a real language barrier but many important issues to tackle, using football breaks down those barriers and we can start to solve problems like conflict”.
Notes to the Editors
1. Dads Against Drugs is a charitable organisation that uses football to tackle drug, crime and anti social problems in Hull’s diverse communities and Prison environments. In 2006 DADs won the Governments Yorkshire & The Humber Tackling Drugs Changing Lives Award for its outstanding work.
For further information and details of future press releases about DADs participation in Foca 09 and availability of members of the team DADs team for interviews, please contact Rob Broomfield m: 07921249054 see: www.dadsagainstdrugs.co.uk for DADs news.
2. streetfootballworld is a social profit organisation that promotes positive change through football. Since it was founded in 2002, the social profit organisation has emerged as a leading contributor to the field of Development through Football and continues to work toward social change on a global scale.
Through the streetfootballworld network, streetfootballworld connects over 70 organisations worldwide that use the world’s most popular sport to address issues such as children’s rights and education, anti-discrimination and social integration, the environment, health, and peacebuilding. The streetfootballworld network helps local organisations to not only gain access to experience and expertise in the field, but also to share their work in Development through Football with potential partners and the general public.
For further information about streetfootballworld and Foca 09 contact streetfootballworld Kristina Gawriljuk project coordinator: Foca 09 phone +49 30 61507355, fax +49 30 78006245, www.streetfootballworld.org
3. Media Relations at the event will be extensive and will be co-ordinated by Media Consulta, Germany’s largest Public Relations firm, they are responsible for film making, promotional material, audio visual documentation of the event and press delegation.
4. The European Commission – Directorate General for Enlargement is the main funding partners of Foca 09.
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