Football for Friendship organises International Friendship Camp: children from all over the world discuss the Nine Values of the programme
Moscow: Over two weeks, the Young Participants of the Ninth Season of Gazprom International Children’s Social Programme Football for Friendship (F4F), met online in the International Friendship Camp where they took part in various workshops on the topics of sport and social cooperation.
The overall theme of the camp was “Uniting friends – uniting the world”, and the children and young people aged 12 to 14 years from 211 countries exchanged their views and experiences on the Nine Values of F4F: friendship, equality, fairness, health, peace, devotion, victory, traditions, and honour. Irrespective of their country of origin, their gender, their ethnicity or their language, the Young Participants were able to get to know each other better and to make friends in the course of the online events on 15th-23rd of May.
During the workshops, which were moderated by adult educators, the children were involved in a variety of activities: they wrote essays on topics of interest to them, made videos about their contribution to environmental protection, and discussed the topic of gender equality in sport.
One of the exercises for example gave the participants the opportunity to present their personal definition of the value friendship. In a brainstorming in groups, they were asked to dedicate the Day of Football and Friendship 2021 to a particular event. The results of every team were handed over to tutors And Young Journalists who selected the best options. In the next step the participants were asked to share with others their personal stories of friendships.
With regard to the value equality, some girls talked about how, in their football teams at home, they were often not taken seriously at first by the boys and that they had to work twice as hard to gain recognition and to show that football is not just a men’s sport.
David Sargent from Ireland talked about biodiversity and mentioned the problem of bees dying out in his region. To help save the bees and to provide them with food, he created what he described as small bombs, made of clay and nutritious soil with seeds of wild grasses and flowers for making honey. He drew attention to the dangers to which bees are exposed and emphasised how important bees are for sustainable development.
In the International Friendship Camp, the children, under the guidance of Young Coaches like Alketabi Nivin from Syria, also prepared for the Football for Friendship eWorld Championship 2021, which is being contested in a digital format on the multiplayer simulator “Football for Friendship World” (F4F World).
32 Teams of Friendship with players from more than 200 countries will be taking part in this tournament. The group stage, which involves matches in eight groups, will be played on 24th and 25th May, with the final on 29th May. The teams, each of which have six players, are named after animal species that are at risk of extinction like “Chinese alligator”, “Red-legged crow”, “Dusky shark”, “White rhino”, “Pallas’s cat”, “Star-nosed mole”, “Woodland owl” and “Western long-beaked echidna”.
Shahriyar Ahmed Mahir, Bangladesh, Young Journalist, aged 14 years: “To be honest, as a journalist of F4F, I wasn’t expecting such a high level of quality and public support from this game; it’s amazing. F4F World is a game which unites us – young players, fans, friends, team members – and most importantly it unites our memories of previous F4F seasons. Truly, F4F World is uniting us again, and uniting the world!”
About the programme:
The International Children’s Social Programme Football for Friendship is implemented by Gazprom since 2013. Over the previous seven seasons, the programme has united over 15 000 participants from 211 countries and regions and over 6 000 000 supporters.
Young Players and Young Journalists are the participants of the programme – boys and girls aged 12 including children with disabilities. Young Players represent different countries and cultures united in the mixed teams of the Football for Friendship World Championship. They show that nationality, gender, and physical abilities aren’t a barrier to becoming a team. Young Journalists cover the events of the programme in the International Children’s Press Center. All participants become Young Ambassadors of the programme and continue to share their Football for Friendship experience and promote universal human values: friendship, equality, fairness, health, peace, devotion, victory, traditions, and honour.
UEFA, FIFA, football federations and the world’s leading football clubs, international charity foundations, famous athletes, politicians, and artists support Football for Friendship. The project has received over 60 national and international awards in the field of social responsibility, sports, and communications, including two GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ titles for the most nationalities in a football training session in history and the most users in a football video hangout.
Programme’s official internet resources:
Photo and video materials for media: http://media.footballforfriendship.com
Website: https://www.gazprom-football.com/football-for-friendship/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/footballforfriendship/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FootballForFriendship/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/FOOTBALL4FRIENDSHIP
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_for_Friendship
Twitter: https://twitter.com/f4fprogramme
