During this season of Open Fun Football Schools, there have been ongoing challenges regarding Covid-19 and restrictions. However, this September, Cross Cultures Ukraine arranged 4 Open Fun Football School-festivals to benefit the children. All necessary precautions and restrictions were taken into consideration, following both Cross Cultures Corona-guidelines and the local guidelines in the 3 regions: Lugansk, Odessa, Zaporizhia.
(Read about the guidelines here: https://ccpa.eu/corona-guidelines-for-the-re-opening-of-open-fun-football-schools/ and https://covid19.gov.ua/en/ )
The Odessa Region:
The Open Fun Football school held in Yuzhnyi lasted 4 days and united 48 boys and girls from 4 schools, creating 4 teams with 12 players in each. The football pitch was divided into 6 sections; football technique, School-Sport-Police, a zone of barriers, mental health, fun games, and healthy lifestyle, ensuring that the festival was fun and meaningful to the children of age 6-16. Among the players were internally displaced children, children of soldiers, and children of vulnerable categories.
OFFS coordinator Svitlana Vyshnia says:
“I have been watching the project and how it was held in other regions for a long time, and admired that it was not a competition where the winners are determined, but a festival where everyone is the winner, and the participants-schools get sports equipment provided by the Ukrainian Association of Football. We got such an opportunity to hold the festival when I became the winner of the competition “The best innovation sports lesson with the elements of football”
Find more information: https://uaf.ua/article/40428
The Zaporizhia region:
On September 14-18 Open Fun Football Schools Festivals were held in Zaporizhia region, Ukraine. Girls and boys from 14 schools took part in the activities regarding mental health, a healthy lifestyle, games for the development of general and special skills, fun games, football games and football techniques. Furthermore, the activities followed our school-sport-police initiative, meaning that local policemen took part in the activities, strengthening cross-sectorial collaboration aiming at social inclusion and juvenile crime prevention.
Find more information: https://uaf.ua/article/40248
The Lugansk region:
This region is located in the east of Ukraine, which means it is close to the war and the children in the area therefor needs additional support. On September 17-20 and October 2-5, two Open Fun Football schools were held with Fun Football and Fun games activities, focussing on life skills education.