FIFA World Cup 2010 for Change The FIFA world cup is the largest sporting event in the world today. FIFA have always used its events for the international awareness for the well practiced social problems. FIFA being the largest sporting event around the world help drawing attention towards these social problems. This makes a path for people to follow and support such causes. FIFA helps to create an incredible amount of awareness from the media and businesses which is used to extirpate these social issues. FIFA help by raising funds and awareness at global levels through the platform of football. FIFA actively create campaigns to eradicate social problems at many levels around the world.
List of current campaigns:
20 Centres for 2010: This campaign is conducted within the framework of the football for hope movement. This campaign is formed to represent the game’s commitment to the social upliftment. This step will help forming a bridge between the FIFA and the street football world. The FIFA’s goal is to raise 10 million USD to construct 20 ‘Football for Hope Centres’ across African continent. Out of these 20, South Africa will have 5 and other 15 will be across the continent. Every stadium will have a mini pitch along with classrooms and healthcare facilities. It will be a place for youth to play and access the counselling, health and education services. This program will help improve basic education, prevent diseases and promote health as well as improving the levels of minorities by better interaction with the society.
FIFA Fair Play: “My Game is Fair Play”: Fair play is a fundamental part of playing game. The campaigns aim is to show the positive sides of playing the game by rules and respecting fellow players, opponents, referee and fans. This campaign is in effect from 1986 FIFA World Cup. This helped designing a code of conduct for the game which can be easily understood by any person. This campaign not only represents football but all the games played by the children.
“Say No to Racism”: FIFA is using its World Cup event to stop the racist behaviour around the world by the word of mouth and hoardings. This step of promoting this cause was felt in 2005-06 when some of the racist comments were passed in football matches. This created a need for concrete steps to stop this problem. For this FIFA celebrates “Say no to racism” Day on 30th June and 1st July of every year.
List of previous campaigns:
“Let’s Play, Let’s Build”: This campaign was formed to make people aware about HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa. The campaign’s goal was to raise a total of US $ 2 million which has surpassed to US $ 2.12 million. This money is used to provide facilities for orphaned and abandoned children.
“Goals for Girls!”: The campaign took place in 2007 and was focussed to uplift the status of girl child in the society. For this purpose an event was organised name FIFA Women’s World Cup China 2007. The goal was to empower girls to advance by eradicating gender inequality.
“6 Villages for 2006″: The event started in 2006 and the aim was to construct 6 villages for children in Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam and Ukraine. This was in association with SOS Children’s Villages. The total money raised was more than €21 million till the end of year 2006. This helped more than 800 orphans by providing shelter, food, clothes and other facilities like education etc. These villages also help preventing HIV/AIDS.
“Unite for Children, Unite for Peace”: This campaign was launched to show support for the cause that every child has the right to a peaceful world, free from conflict and abuse. This was in lieu of 2 million child deaths due to wars in last decade and many more are permanently disabled. This campaign was in association with UNICEF and is in a continuous process to improve health, education, equality and protection for every child. FIFA donated 1200 ‘Sports-in-a-Box’ recreation kits to UNICEF for conflict affected countries in 2004.
“Los chicos siempre ganan”: The campaign was also in association of UNICEF at U-17 World Cup Championship in 2005. The goal was to integrate attitude, skills that helps to generate a positive image of adolescents. This was to increase political and social importance of people who are yet to turn 18. Many workshops took place providing information about education, reproductive health, sex education and social problems to young ones.
“Go Girls!”: FIFA dedicated U-19 Women’s World Championship Thailand 2004 to raise awareness of the right, “education for every child”. This decision was taken as the help to UNICEF’s campaign to promote girl education. On this date more than 130 million children are uneducated and most of them are girls. Though no money was raised but it helped putting this problem at centre stage.
“Red Card to Child Labour”: This campaign was carried out by FIFA and ILO. The campaign was formed to eliminate the child labour through advocacy campaigns. The symbol used for this was red card which represents elimination of a player from the game of football. This was a movement in favour of 218 million child labours out of these 126 million are intolerably exploited.
“Say Yes for Children”: The campaign started on 7th May 2002. The campaign is in favour of children and supports 10 critical actions needed to improve the condition of children around the world. These actions are:
- All types of discriminations and exploitations against children must end.
- Every single person, company NGO religious group and government should ensure that children’s rights are respected.
- Every child should get the best possible start in life.
- Protect children and adolescents from any form of exploitation.
- Violence and abuse must be stopped against children and adolescents.
- Respect the rights of children and young people to express themselves.
- Every child must be allowed to learn and study.
- No child should experience the armed conflicts.
- Safeguard the environment at global, national and local levels for coming generation.
- Invest in services that benefit the poorest children and their families, such as basic health care and primary education etc.
The campaign is still ongoing.
“Smoke-free Soccer”: FIFA formed a campaign of smoke free soccer in 2002 in association with WHO and HHS. The aim was to encourage young people to follow a healthy and active life style. This was focussed to show people that quitting smoking can help them regain their physical health and stamina making them able to play games at any level.
“Kick Polio out of Africa”: FIFA, CAF used the occasion of the 22nd African Cup of Nations in Ghana and Nigeria to support the WHO and its partners in their campaign to make Africa free of polio. This campaign took place in 2000. This was an international campaign and its goal was to eradicate this problem completely by the end of year 2000. May special messages were aired during the game time using legendary African footballers George Weah, Marcel Desailly, Jay Jay Okocha and Shabani Nonda. The football stars appealed to their TV fans to help eradicate polio on the African continent.
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