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Fifa pursues impact, Fufa welcomes Football for schools
Some of the children enjoy a kick-about in Njeru. PHOTOS/JOHN BATANUDDE
What you need to know:
This is a programme run by Fifa in partnership with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) where football meets education, inspiring children to learn life skills through fun football sessions to develop and empower about 700 million children.
The sight of young children kicking a ball is common in nearly every neighbourhood. It is so beautiful that it represents the humble beginnings of many African and South American soccer stars.
Yet, that visualization is often pegged to purely football. So when a bunch of 120 girls and boys gathered for a clinic at Fufa Technical Centre in Njeru on Wednesday, it was just more than the game.
The festival event run by 50 newly-trained instructors marked a climax of the launch of the international Football For Schools (F4S) Programme by global soccer body Fifa.
This is a programme run by Fifa in partnership with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) where football meets education, inspiring children to learn life skills through fun football sessions to develop and empower about 700 million children.
“Fifa is organizing the World Cups. But we are also in charge of developing football around the world. Most of the time it’s about competitions and at some point my president Gianni Infantino realized that we had to touch the masses,” said Fifa Chief Member Associations officer Kenny Honore Jean Marie.
“It is about how we can take the child at the age of four, play football and gain some skills in your life. We can’t implement this alone. At the international level, we work with Unesco. At the local level, we are working with teachers that we have been able to train in the past days,” he added.
Participants at the end of the workshop.
And perhaps, so. The conversations about the dearth of educated or complete footballers have spiraled across the sport’s circles in the country in the past decade.
“This program was a dream when we first heard about it, but here it comes as a reality,” noted Fufa president Moses Magogo.
F4S was launched by Infantino in mid-2019 with pilot projects in Puerto Rico and Lebanon. Uganda is the 111th country to receive the F4S programme among all 206 Fifa members.
With the schools’ curriculum (already at secondary level) changing to classes to end at 3pm, Magogo wasn’t shy to state that the plan is to target nearly all 15 million children in the country.
“It’s not going to be a difficult conversation for us. There are things a classroom will not teach you. And we are packaging football as one of the ways,” added Magogo.
At the weekend, Fifa F4S manager Antonio Buenano Sanchez and Fifa technical consultant Alberto Giacomini tutored 50 games’ teachers in the programme and it’s through them that expansion across the country will be met.
The program is made up of sessions which are installed in a smart phone application, both for trained instructors to teach and for follow-up. Overall, F4S builds to several United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In part, the app has about 360 short videos designed for age-specific child development stages: four to seven years, eight to 11 years and 12-14 years.
The 120 children were a basis of the application of these processes involving football and a behind-a-life-skill process such as communication, problem solving, and self-confidence among others.
Fifa's Jean Marie (L) is joined by Fufa president Moses Magogo
Marie is hoping that this, hopefully, will be able to cascade down to the rest of the country but more importantly, create impact. “I come from an island in the Caribbean where my mother told me that knowledge is not something for you but to be shared,” he told the youngsters.
“I hope to return here soon and I will be witnessing a match where one of you started football here. I am witnessing the future happening now,” added Marie.
Fufa is targeting to scale up F4S across more than 360 schools, for the start but to realize the dream of covering every child, Magogo admits it will involve significant acknowledgement from the government through the Ministry of Education and Sports.
Under F4S, Fifa provides $50000 (Shs187m) and 60,000 Adidas balls through a federation like Fufa towards the country for the program.
ABOUT THE FOOTBALL FOR SCHOOLS (F4S)
Inventor: Fifa
Global Partner: Unesco
Local Implementers: Local federation (Fufa), Government (Education Ministry)
Launch: Mid-2019
Global Target: 700 million children
THE NUMBERS
50: Number of games’ teachers trained by Fifa under F4S
111: Uganda is the 111th country to receive this global program
362: Initial target number of schools which Fufa targets for F4S
50000: A one-off payment in US dollars given by Fifa to each member association to run F4S
60000: Number of Adidas footballs to be distributed to schools
