20 social festivals “Open Fun Football Schools” were held this autumn in Ukraine

This season of fun football games, lessons, tournaments, contests and other events based on a “sports for all” concept (which were held within “Open Fun Football Schools” project) was finished by some great 5-day children’s festivals of school football which took place this autumn.
Sports results were not their core task, but the main point was to engage children into healthy lifestyle. Fun football games became the best educational tool in order to promote these values among pupils, establish friendship among children and bring together their parents of different social stratums.
This year while implementing the project, Football Federation of Ukraine launched a fruitful cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Both organizations noted great capabilities of such festivals in children crimes & conflicts prevention. The higher number of children from vulnerable families, orphans or children from single-parent families and children deprived of parental care, disabled children, children that have their files in internal affairs agencies, children of different nationalities and gender, was covered by the project.
Prior to arranging the festivals, volunteers’ training was organized at 3 seminars in Alushta on the basis of the Olympic educational and sports centers “Spartak”.
According to seminars statistics, 251 volunteers participated in seminars in 2012. Those volunteers held numerous different follow-up fun football activities in May-October 2012 before main 5-day festivals. 12595 children (9078 boys, 3517 girls), including 574 orphans or children from one-parent families, 319 children with special needs, 821 children with other social problems participated in them.
The following are highlights from the events:
– “Open Fun Football Schools” (OFFS) festivals in all regions within UEFA Grassroots Day celebration from 11th till 23rd of May, including OFFS festivals in Euro-2012. Host cities which were dedicated too.
European Cup Trophy-Tour:
11th of May – Kyiv city with Davor Suker’s attendance;   
15th of May – Kharkiv city with Igor Kutepov’s attendance, Ukrainian football star;
18th of May – Donetsk city with Victor Grachov’s attendance, Ukrainian football star;
23rd of May – Lviv city with Igor Kulchistkiy’s and Stepan Yurchyshyn’s attendance, Ukrainian football stars;
– On the 12th of May in Kyiv, final of the School Football National Cup EURO-2012 was held in front of 46’000 spectators at the main stadium of the country, where later on final Euro-2012 took place. In total 176 000 participants took part in this great event which was conducted on OFFS principles. All OFFS volunteers and children were engaged in regions of its implementation. In the final teams were awarded by Mr. Boris Kolesnikov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine; Mr. Dmitriy Tabachnik, the Minister of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine; Mr. Gianni Infantino, the UEFA General Secretary; Mr. Grygoriy Surkis, Member of the EUFE Executive Committee. All teams were awarded with trophies (the main prize was replica of the European Cup trophy), diplomas, Euro-2012 footballs, football kit of Ukrainian A-Team and other football gifts. Furthermore the kids also got tickets for the Euro-2012 quarterfinals, semifinals and final match. It should be noted that parents of kids participating in the final match of the School Cup were also invited to visit it;
– OFFS “Fair Play” festival, which was organized in Eurovillage (Arch of People’s Friendship) in a center of Kyiv during Euro-2012. The festival goal was to create the opportunity of involving in Euro-2012 for children from poor families, orphans from venues covered by OFFS projects and that probably in majority will never get such chance. Children got valuable gifts with Euro-2012 logo, footballs and the most active kids from Kiyv and Donetsk orphanages received tickets for the Euro-2012 matches. All participating kids were on excursion in the House of Football and its museum, at the main stadium of European Championship, in a main fan-zone.
Each participating OFFS region had one day for its presentation in “Fair Play” festival:
8th of June – Lugansk Region;
9th of June – Donetsk Region;
10th of June – Kharkiv Region;
11th of June – Kyiv city with the visit of the Swedish ambassador in Ukraine and SIDA management;
15th of June – Vinnitsa Region;
16th of June – Odessa Region;
17th of June – Chernovtsy Region with Vitaliy Klichko’s visit;
17th of June – great festival in Lviv city at “Sokol” stadium with the UEFA management’s visit;
18th of June – AR Crimea;
– OFFS project members from Euro-2012 Host Cities were also engaged in flag carrying before all Euro-2012 matches;
– OFFS project members from Euro-2012 Host Cities also participated in “Eurocamp”, the greatest football festival in 2012, which took place in Wroclaw, Poland from August 28th to September 3rd and brought together teams from all 53 UEFA nations. Ukraine was represented by 5 teams which were formed by OFFS children;
– OFFS project presentation in all Ukrainian Regions and Kyiv city (at the main Khreshchatyk Str.) on September 8th within the All-Ukrainian sports holiday “Olympic Lesson”, founded by the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports together with federations of all Olympic sports;
– Joint press conference with Football Federation of Ukraine, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports was held at 10 a.m. on 14th of September 2012 in the House of Football of Ukraine. It was dedicated to cooperation in the field of implementation of the OFFS project focusing on crime and conflicts prevention among children. Ministry of Internal Affairs presented its vision of concept implementation during OFFS festivals and joint cooperation forms in the  future including staff selection in local police authorities who will lead “police” stations, their training at seminars, preparation of specific manuals for this activity including specific intellectual games, creation of Slavko the Brave mascot – a magic children’s’ friend-policeman, creation of a video and cartoon that involve children into discussion of children’s daunting social problems and their delinquency, design of a special album with inquiring pictures on this issue, design of flyers with contacts of specialized regional centres which support children in the case of violence in family or other problems. Mr. Anders Levinsen, SIDA management, all new FFU management, including Mr. Anatoliy Kon’kov – FFU President, Ministries management took part in the press conference. Just after press conference termination, Kyiv “Open Fun Football Schools-2012” festival was opened at the Bannokiv’s stadium. It was “draft” school, which used mentioned above police system methods at 2 stations;
– The final award ceremony for the winners of two the most large-scales on-line football contests of Ukraine – “We are Euro-2012 hosts” and “Live healthy!” – was held in a conference-hall of Football Federation of Ukraine on Friday, 28th of September.  This contest was conducted by the All-Ukrainian educational network “Shchodennyk.ua” , which account more than 1 million registered users (preliminary – pupils), FFU and the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports. A great number of children participating in various OOS measures were among contests members. They presented photos, videos and other works dedicated to school football and healthy lifestyle as well as Euro-2012. Winners got not only diplomas and football statuettes from Football Federation of Ukraine, but also footballs with A-Team players’ and Oleg Kuznetsov’s (famous Ukrainian football player) autographs, official T-shirts of the national team as well as “RESPECT your Health” and “Eat for Goals” books.
On receiving OFFS equipment and materials, their recognizing as humanitarian aid as well as on their distributing and delivering to regions, the 5-day OFFS schools were conducted by the following schedule:
– 10th-14th of September – Dzhankoy of AR Crimea, Simferopol of AR Crimea, Evpatoriya of AR Crimea;
– 13th-17th of September – Rubezhnoe of Lugansk region;
– 14th, 17th-20th of September – Kyiv city;
– 16th-20th of September – Donetsk city;
– 17th-21st of September – Feodosia of AR Crimea, Kostochkovka of Nizhnegorsk district of AR Crimea , Andreevka (Sevastopol) of AR Crimea, Lesnovka of Saky district of AR Crimea;
– 24th-28th of September – Krasnoperekopsk of AR Crimea, Simferopol of AR Crimea, Nasypnoe of Feodosia district of AR Crimea, Gvardeyskoe of Simferopol district of AR Crimea, Sudak of AR Crimea, Lviv, Yampol of Vinnitsa Region, Boyany of Novoselitsa district of Chernovtsy Region;
– 1st-5th of October – Kharkiv;
– 15th-19th of October – Tatarbunary of Odessa Region.
Each of 20 OFFS schools was well prepared and conducted at high organizational and methodological level, which was recognized by project coordinators and instructors monitoring their implementation.
The following conclusions can be made as a consequence of school activity monitoring and analyses of statistic data:
 – 3874 children, 622 volunteers, 876 parents were involved in 5-days schools;
 – children of 36 nationalities (in majority, Ukrainians, Russians, Crimean Tatars, Moldavians), 597 children from vulnerable families, 593 from returnee families, 152 orphans or from single-parent families, 190 children with special needs took part in schools.