2021 Football for Friendship Educators’ Team – faces of the programme
The Football for Friendship programme is about sport, diversity, values, but first of all it’s about people. Plenty of people are involved in creating this story on different levels, and the “front office” for all Young Participants are their Educators. These are people with whom children attend the Nine Values School, train, do tasks, reach goals, and communicate during the whole F4F programme. Though all Educators are united by common values and share one message, they are all diverse: each one with their own origin, background and experience. Today, some of them will share their stories.
It is quite a demanding job, a good educator must be fluent in at least one foreign language, be open-minded and communicative, be able to find an approach to any of the participants. There’s no surprise, that a lot of team members work as interpreters or in industries connected with communications.
Irina Dubrovskaya, F4F Educator of the Stoat team:
“I’m a Spanish and English translator and interpreter.
I am more than happy to take part in such a large-scale project!
My experience here has shown that not only ambassadors and journalists learn about the Nine Values – everyone who is involved in the project learn them: we break the ice and become friends, we are devoted to our teams, we try to create the atmosphere of peace, we learn to be honourable…
So, football really IS for friendship.”
The Educators share the Nine Values of the programme and a great passion for football.
They support different football teams in real life, but here they have no argues, which team is better, everyone is united with the spirit of friendship and joy.
Matthew Rossomakhin, F4F Educator of the Honduraan Emerald Team:
”Here are some interesting facts you should know about me:
1. I was born on Friday the thirteenth.
2. I’ve been a Liverpool fan since 2010.
I am very proud that I had the opportunity to work in the programme in 2018 At the same time, I plunged into a new world, the world of Football for Friendship with great people and amazing kids
that’s why I’m excited to work here again and again.
That’s a great opportunity to communicate with people from different countries, to learn new cultures and to get a lot of emotions.”
Evgeniy Portnov, Educator of the Long-eared hedgehog Team:
“2 interesting facts about me:
1.I lived in Thailand for nearly 10 years, where I studied at school,
2.My favorite football team is FC Barcelona and my favorite player is Messi.This is my first time in F4F and I love everything about it! The kids are amazing!
All of them want to learn something new and that amazes me. My colleagues are nice, and they are always eager to help in difficult situations. The working atmosphere here is great! I’m really happy to be a part of this programme.”
Unlike the participants of the Ninth Season the educators take part in this story offline – so they live at one place, spend a lot of time together – they do team building exercises, play games, watch movies, discuss all the news at the daily meetings.
So, for them it is a real Camp, that brought together people from different cities and countries.
Okeke Cosmosbrian Ikenna, or just Cosmos came from Anambra State, Nigeria to take part in the programme
Okeke Cosmosbrian Ikenna, F4F Educator of the Team Shoebill:
“Football for Friendship is phenomenal, I am inspired by the idea of bringing young football players together to provide them specific knowledge and ethics in a friendly atmosphere offline and online, where children are literally trained with the values and principles of life that will guide them in their future football career and everyday life.”
Half of the educators’ team has joined Football for Friendship before. Some of them have the experience of offline F4F Camp.
And they are very open and friendly to the newcomers, who got the chance to join Football for Friendship family in 2021.
Ekaterina Riaposova, F4F Educator of the Saker falcon Team:
“This is the first time I’m participating in Football for Friendship and I find this social programme amazing. I was always interested in watching football matches, especially very important ones like Euro or World Cup. And also, I’m so into getting to know different cultures, having conversations with people from all over the world. For the past 4 years I’ve been an active member in European students’ organisation where I got the chance to be in international environment.
This programme broadens my horizons even more as there are children from all over the world. I see how much influence F4F brings to its participants.
Children communicate and play with their foreign peers, learn a lot about their traditions, take part in discussions about life values, and football unites them.”
