Cross Cultures Georgia fights back

This story is written by Mamuka Kvaratskhelia, regional coordinator for the Open Fun Football schools programme in Georgia.

In January 2020 the Georgian Football Federation and Cross Cultures composed and scheduled the activities for the coming year; all Caucasus partner countries should participate in a 3-day leadership seminar in Batumi and 13 Open Fun Football Schools (one in each region) were some of the activities planned before Covid-19 put a pause on everything. However, in cooperation with the headquarters in Copenhagen and Anders Levinsen, founder and director of Cross Cultures, we decided to decrease the number of children to 6 groups of 9 children in each at the Open Fun Football Schools (OFFS). Instead of conducting the 13 OFFS and minimizing the number of participants, we decided to divide all 13 regional football federations with the surrounding sub-regions which resulted in 70 venues with 170 teams, assisted by 170 coaches, planned in all regions of Georgia.

We started from the mountains of Georgia, as not a single Covid-19 case was detected. At this moment we have travelled through the different regions of Georgia, from seaside to 200 metres mountains, and in total 64 venues with 177 teams has been conducted, which means that more than 1800 children have been playing safely with us.
All activities have been done without a single corona case.