Cross Cultures Virtual Clubhouse is an initiative developed in light of the Covid-19 crisis as a result of the shutdown of all Cross Cultures activities. The shutdown provided a challenge of getting access to and being in connection with children and youth. We concluded that we had to find a way to communicate with children and youth via social media and the internet. Therefore, Cross Cultures is in process, with assistance of the Danish FA Copenhagen, of developing a virtual Clubhouse.
The Virtual Clubhouse’s purpose is to connect our participants and network in an effort to ‘bringing people together’ during different and challenging times.
The Virtual Clubhouse is, in its simplicity, a platform that provides fun materials and games related to life-skills activities aimed at learning, and e-coach- and youth leadership-education materials developed according to Cross Cultures methodological approach.
Furthermore, the Virtual Clubhouse links directly to a Cross Cultures discord page, where e-coach educators and children from our different partnership countries meet and play online football tournaments in PES and life-skills activities in break-out rooms – an online football school, so to say.
In this way, we believe that we in short-term can launch a new activity with the kids so that they too stay connected with us and our life-skill education.
Founder and CEO of Cross Cultures, Anders Levinsen, comments; “What started as a capacity assessment of all partner countries, resulted in a new way of connecting our network online – both in the creative process with our partners and in the first online tournaments with life-skills activities with children and e-coach educators. The experiences and materials we have gained access to through this, I’m convinced will be useful when we open our football schools again”.
The Virtual Clubhouse is divided into a children’s room and a coach’ room. The latter will focus on providing educational materials and courses for Cross Cultures online e-coach educators. 8 e-coach educators and 10 e-game admins have already successfully been educated in managing online encounters and organizing events for children, with the help of the Danish FA’s online instructors.
During the process of developing this initiative, an organizational development has to been established. In total 10 committees have been implemented that each focus on different aspects of the Clubhouse, furthering knowledge exchange between Cross Cultures partners. This organizational structure of committees will remain influential in the future for the development of Cross Cultures.
Mazen Ramadan, head of the steering committee, points; “Working on developing Cross Cultures in different committees has really been interesting. Everyone gets to work in their field of expertise and then when the committees meet, all sorts of ideas flourish”.
For the future, we will bridge the activities between the Open Fun Football Schools, our Virtual Clubhouse and the committees and this will further bringing our network in connection with each other.
