Football for Peace is using the global influence of football with partners to bring resource and awareness to 5 key challenges which are interconnected both locally and globally.
Social justice
Football for Peace is at the forefront of using preventative and football diplomacy through soft engagement to achieve integration amongst marginalised youth audiences in urban cities.
It is here where fear of others is based on ignorance and misunderstanding, tribal divisions where dialogue and cohesion has been eroded and where community hatred is prevailing; areas that are divided by ethnic rebellion, including Islamophobia, antisemitism, sectarianism or profound nationalism; regions where young refugees and war orphans need provision to reintegrate into society.
- We propose action plans and work in partnership with central governments, clubs and councils which enable us to witness stronger, more integrated cities. We have a nationwide and international track record of success. Through the programme, we have helped to strengthen relations between neighbours, countries, cities countering divisive and polarising narratives as well as creating community leaders and role models.
- Our most recent work in the United Kingdom and French Republic, bilaterally supported by both governments, has been to engage with youth at risk of social harms in the most challenging parts of the country. These were subject to rigorous measurement and evaluation evidencing change in behaviours and attitudes.
- Football for Peace has inspired young people to reject divisive and violent messaging and opened up pathways to their ambition and creativity. In an increasingly volatile global environment where the disconnect between government and young people is widening, football is an invaluable tool for effective outreach and impactful results.
Our 5 key pillars are interconnected both locally and globally which also support the United Nations Sustainable Development #GlobalGoals and currently are hitting the below targets for 2030.
We are working on and using the world of football to join and facilitate projects and initiatives that will allow us to hit these targets.
Currently Football for Peace is hitting 13 SDGs at a global scale:
TARGET 16.1
Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.
TARGET 16.2
End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.
TARGET 16‐A
Strengthen relevant national institutions, including through international cooperation, for building capacity at all levels, in particular in developing countries to prevent violence and combat terrorism and crime.
Equality
Working with our strategic partners we envisage a world characterised by equality and inclusion and therefore focus our on equality through our programme that brings together young people from different cultures and faiths, who wouldn’t normally mix, socially or otherwise; to work together, play together, and learn to confront preconceptions, stereotypes through a common passion.
Drawing on expertise within the local areas we visit, we work to identify communities, both at home and abroad, to take part in the programme. Schools are asked to identify students they believe would benefit the most from being involved. Those chosen go on to become our ‘Young Peace Leaders’.
- The students undergo a number of courses designed to equip them with not only the skills and understanding they’ll need to become a Young Peace Leader, but more importantly, the life skills for the future.
- Our latest equality focused initiative is called the Red Card Campaign led by ARDN and supported by FIFA, UN and Football for Peace.
- The "Red Card" campaign is a special project for the United Nations to popularise the Sustainable Development Goals. Spearheaded by ARDN (African Renaissance and Diaspora Network) and supported by Football for Peace and FIFA by a binding agreement, the campaign utilises the unifying power of sport to provide an opportunity to governments, academia, civil society, the private sector, the general public, and other stakeholders to demonstrate to the world, and to their respective constituencies, their commitment and efforts towards achieving equality and equity for all. But also to encourage their constituencies to become part of an international team dedicated to scoring Sustainable Development Goals.
- The idea behind the campaign is to "give a red card" to all forms of discrimination and violence against girls. Specifically, it will obtain a minimum of one million commitments, by the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, to fully respect every other human being, regardless of gender, culture, colour, language, social origin, birth, property or religion, hence to put an end to all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls.
The global launch of the "Red Card" campaign will be held on 6 March 2020, during International Women's week, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Football for Peace will bring together stars from the world of sport, whilst UN and ARDN will bring artists, leaders from government, international organisations, civil society, the private sector and other stakeholders, into one room to kick off the "Red Card" campaign in a globally televised and coordinated effort.
Through our programmes we deliver targets through specific delivery. Our 5 key pillars are interconnected both locally and globally which also support the United Nations Sustainable Development #GlobalGoals and currently are hitting the below targets for 2030. We are working on and using the world of football to join and facilitate projects and initiatives that will allow us to hit these targets.
TARGET 5.1
End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.
TARGET 5.2
Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.
Water
By investing in the future of communities, many pressing global challenges of environment, peace and prosperity can be met in the present and for future generations.
So where does football fit into all of this?
- Football gives everyone, no matter from what background or gender, the feeling of the difference they can make on the pitch, so we work with landscape rejuvenation actions individuals and communities can take to make a difference to the climate crisis. Football is already a community game and water restoration have to be a community effort, they are a natural fit, moving the spirit collectively to achieve a commonly held global goal.
- The message of scarcity currently used to defend outdated institutional practice, can be replaced by the abundance that nature gifts us when one returns water to the land. Individuals having faith in unlocking the abundance of nature can collectively lead to a restoration of social, economic and ecological well‐being.
Football for Peace are empowering communities with The Flow Partnership and Elemental Ecosystems in the UK and across the world to build Natural Catchment Measures (NCM) (water bodies). Holding the rain water where it falls in ponds like structures allows it to percolate into the underground aquifer. This helps both floods and droughts.
In the case of floods, the water doesn’t become a huge volume rushing downstream to create a flood. The held water percolates down to the underground aquifer and on the surface, it can be channelled to areas that are drier and need the water.
In the case of droughts:
- The water held in the ponds recharges the dry underground aquifer (it’s the drying of the underground aquifers that leads to the drought occurring in the first place).
- The raised water levels in the aquifer raises the level of water in the surface wells and becomes full of water for the people drawing water from the well.
Creating water bodies to hold the rainwater is a source action. Constructing a well is a secondary action. The latter necessarily follows the former. We are empowering the football world to help communities across the world create small water bodies sprinkled liberally across the planet which will go a long way to achieve the goals of solving the climate and water challenges at a planetary level.
With the water in the landscape being in balance, other issues like Equality, Social Justice, Migration etc. can all be addressed at source.
- Example of work before and after through the Flow Partnership – This work serves to slow the surface run off, allowing it to filter and store, minimising erosion, recharging aquifers, regulating localised weather patterns and creating wildlife habitat.
- We are mobilising a community of people who are experts in obtaining results through skilful and directed action. The emphasis on simple actions within a broad expertise can make every football expert a water expert. There is a natural common message between football, water and climate to realise global environmental, social and economic goals. Through our programmes we deliver targets through specific delivery.
Our 5 key pillars are interconnected both locally and globally which also support the United Nations Sustainable Development #GlobalGoals and currently are hitting the below targets for 2030.
We are working on and using the world of football to join and facilitate projects and initiatives that will allow us to hit these targets.
Climate
We are mobilising a community of people who are experts in obtaining results through skilful and directed action. The emphasis on simple actions within a broad expertise can make every football expert a water expert. There is a natural common message between football, water and climate to realise global environmental, social and economic goals. Through our programmes we deliver targets through specific delivery.
Our 5 key pillars are interconnected both locally and globally which also support the United Nations Sustainable Development #GlobalGoals and currently are hitting the below targets for 2030.
We are working on and using the world of football to join and facilitate projects and initiatives that will allow us to hit these targets.
TARGET 13.1
Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate‐related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.
TARGET 13.3
Improve education, awareness‐raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.
TARGET 15.3
By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation‐neutral world.
Poverty
We are mobilising a community of people who are experts in obtaining results through skilful and directed action. The emphasis on simple actions within a broad expertise can make every football expert a water expert. There is a natural common message between football, water and climate to realise global environmental, social and economic goals. Through our programmes we deliver targets through specific delivery.
Our 5 key pillars are interconnected both locally and globally which also support the United Nations Sustainable Development #GlobalGoals and currently are hitting the below targets for 2030.
We are working on and using the world of football to join and facilitate projects and initiatives that will allow us to hit these targets.
TARGET 1.5
By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate‐related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters.
Often we mistake stability, in terms of security and economic activity, to mean a country is doing well. We forget the third and important pillar: rule of law and respect for human rights.