August 2014 – Football & Peace

Prime Minister supports Football & Peace Projects

Posted on August 9, 2014 by MD Posted in News .

Ernie Brennan with Prime Minister David Cameron 01 07 14_280_200

Ernie Brennan (left) meets Prime Minister David Cameron at number 10 Downing Street’s Centenary Reception

The NCFA’s Director, Ernie Brennan talks about meeting the Prime Minister and visiting 10 Downing Street to discuss the Peace Fields Project. Funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund, the Football & Peace Pilot Project was considered a success with partners, participants and the government. The Peace Fields Project continues the good work and invites schools and sports clubs to twin there areas of play with Flanders Peace Field.

Interview by Paul Cooper (PC) with Ernie Brennan (EB)

PC. So how did the invite come about?

EB. The Football & Peace Project profile hit the roof in terms of enquiries when Andrew Murrison, MP, featured on the NCFA website. The Government have been helpful for organisations like the NCFA seeking to commemorate WW1 at grass roots community level. NCFA’s work chimed with Helen Grant, Sports Minister, who very kindly found the time to attend the Football & Peace Day Celebration at Maidstone United Football Club’s Gallagher Stadium, last May. Over the last couple of years NCFA have been in the position to lobby the custodians for support commemorating WW1. The predictable lip service from the business world of football that followed was recognised by numerous organisations, MPs, councillors and education. A body of support who value the Football & Peace Projects and the Peace Fields Projects, wanted the community programmes to work in a way that wasn’t selling football as a product. The Christmas Truces thankfully lacked Fifa rules and Skye television. Also a number of national newspapers referenced our work – in answer to your question; the Government clearly get it, the Press clearly get it, the public clearly get it- I think that is why NCFA’s work led to the WW1 Centenary Reception invite to number 10.

PC. Looking back to the early days of the NCFA it would have seemed incomprehensible that one day you would be knocking on the most famous door in the world. Do you think that reflects how far the NCFA have come over the years?

EB. I never doubted the need for a Children’s Football Alliance, neither did the stakeholders, Brunel University, Leicester University and University of Gloucester. NCFA core members are the salt of the Earth when it comes to the aims of the organisation. I was indeed pleased that the Government invited the NCFA to talk about our work and support the WW1 commemorations at a community level, which I feel recognises the importance of every community that had no choice 100 years ago. I think it is a testament to how far the NCFA have travelled over the years – if the Government are listening, then one hopes the sport you wish to make better is listening too!

PC. Did you get to speak to the pm and if so what about?

EB. I did manage to speak to the PM about the Peace Fields Project and how NCFA are seeking to twin designated areas of school playing fields with Flanders Peace Field through the Peace Village, Messines, Belgium. We briefly discussed the importance of sports at community level engaging in the WW1 centenary commemorations. I stressed that memorials to peace inspired by the Christmas Truces were just as important to memorials of war. As you can imagine the PM’s time is a little like the BBC’s, every second is monitored, recorded and stop watched.

PC. It appears that the NCFA are filling a void and that politicians recognise this. What is you take on this?

EB. In my opinion it is almost ironic that politicians recognise the NCFA on level that chimes with their ‘Big Society’ and yet, sport, particularly football, can be considered by the general public a law onto themselves. Football is now a constant battle of the brands – it is tiresome – many people see through the marketing agendas; I think the Piece Fields Project will remind people that there is a lot more to football than brands and win at all costs, the Project lends itself to the essence of play. Children that took part in the Football & Peace Projects re-evaluated how they felt about the modern day football machine. They considered a space, time and place, where the Christmas Truces in 1914 were humanitarian acts provided moments of hope in a world of chaos. Allies and Germans played games just like they did in their childhood to escape reality. With that thought in mind maybe some politicians are human after all?

PC. What other organisations were at the function?

EB. The great and the good from community projects. There was a wide variety of organisations many from the education sector. The most impressive person I met was Neil Beddow artistic director from Acta Community Theatre who have recently been performing ‘Gas Girls’ which has been receiving critical acclaim in the West Country for their performances. The reception was peppered with celebs which I guess is a necessary tick in a box.

PC. How will attending such a function help the NCFA?

EB. It will raise the NCFA profile which will lead to bolstering a growing network in the third sector (charities) for children’s football. Hits on the NCFA website continue to rise with more child focused organisations recognising the value of partnership work. Attending functions hosted by high profile people is an expected part of the course for further legitimisation. I don’t mean to sound cynical here but I find the whole process a learning curve and frustratingly slow.

PC. To finish off can you describe what it was like to put on a suit and tie. Also please tell me they had cocktail sausages and cheese footballs in the buffet at Number 10!

EB. On a lighter note; my old man once said to me that, ‘you have to earn the right not to wear a suit’. So, I expect I will be wearing a suit like a straight jacket for the rest of my life. Regards the cocktail sausages and cheese footballs, unfortunately, they missed a trick because there were lots of school children on the premises. If fact, number 10 Downing Street has got the perfect garden for jumpers for goal posts. It did cross my mind to challenge the government to a quick game of footy but I feared the neighbours might have kicked up a fuss!

For more information click on the Peace Fields Projects

Germany

Posted on August 9, 2014 by MD Posted in International .

The NCFA’s Football & Peace Projects are gathering interest from around the world. We hear from one of the many Football & Peace supporters taking part in the Peace Day Celebrations in Kent.

My name is Thorven Lucht and I am 40 years old, married with two children (twins). I am a teacher of English, History and Ethics at Humboldt-Gymnasium Bad Pyrmont. At the school I also run the football program – with the help of a group of “junior coaches” (pupils from years 10 to 12 who help with training and organization). This is the perfect way to combine many of my main interests: the English language, historical education, football and working with young people.

Our school is a “Gymnasium”, which is basically an “academic high school”, preparing the students for college. We have around 950 pupils from grade 5 to 12, so between appr. 10 and 18 years of age. Bad Pyrmont is a rather small town of about 22,000 people, located between Hanover and Bielefeld. Our school puts a lot of emphasis on extracurricular activities – often in cooperation with local organizations and clubs. We are also an “inclusive” school, accommodating the needs of students with physical handicaps. Around 15% of our pupils are from immigrant families, mostly from Poland, Russia, Turkey and Pakistan, which makes Bad Pyrmont somewhat less multicultural than bigger German cities.

Is your school looking forward to visiting England and taking part in the Football & Peace Day Celebration?

I can assure you that everyone is tremendously looking forward to this event – the school community as a whole and of course especially the pupils who will have a chance to participate. International contacts are very important for our school. We run regular exchanges with schools in Poland, Italy, Sweden, France and Ireland and are always grateful for more chances to establish new contacts and friendships. The Football & Peace Day is a great idea and a great opportunity for our pupils.

What are the plans to commemorate the First World War in Germany, in particularly your school?

There are a lot of exhibitions and commemorative events at the local and regional level. There is also a noticeable focus on the First World War in the media. The federal government is planning joint events with the French government on August 3rd. At our school, we will put a focus on the First World War in the history curriculum, and various tenth-grade classes will be doing research projects on the history of Bad Pyrmont at that time.

Do children at your school learn about the 1914 Christmas Truce? If so, what do you teach them?

The Christmas Truce is not a mandatory part of the curriculum, but individual teachers often deal with the topic in 9th/10th grade history, 7th-grade bilingual history or in various Religion and Ethics classes. Sometimes it is taught in English classes, often using popular songs about the event. Often the movie “Merry Christmas” (2005) is used in classes. The emphasis is on the symbolic implications of the “Christmas Truce”, as well as on the situation of the young men at the front.

How important is sport for young German children?

In general, still very important, with football and handball being the most popular sports. Former “trend sports” such as tennis and basketball have become somewhat less fashionable. In a town like Bad Pyrmont probably more than half the pupils are members of a sports club. The football program at our school is very popular with girls and boys of all ages.

To what extent does football and sport play a part in German education?

There are regular P.E. classes (2 lessons a week, 3 in the lower grades), as well as school teams which can participate in competitions in more than 20 different sports. The latter are very much dependent on individual teachers who invest their free time into practice times and tournaments, often on weekends. So the extent to which schools participate varies widely.

As for football, there are many different tournaments offered by the State, local Bundesliga clubs (our school is an official partner school for Werder Bremen, for example), or Universities. The German football association offers a lot of help and resources to the schools, for example they train “junior coaches” and young referees and offer seminars and training materials and guidelines to school football coaches.

As stated above, with the help of many “junior coaches”, we manage to offer school football for all age groups – at a competitive level but also often for non-competitive events and projects, sometimes with an international dimension.

Can you tell the National Children’s Football Alliance why you think it is important that children learn about the Christmas Truce and Why this visit to the Football & Peace Day Celebration will benefit your children?

As stated above, the Christmas truce teaches important lessons about the human spirit. It shows that there is a universal longing for peace, and as an act of disobedience and resistance it is unique and uniquely moving. It contrasts impressively with the patriotic madness that swept over Europe at the outbreak of the First World War. The Football and Peace Day Celebration will commemorate this event and will be held in a similar spirit of peace and friendship. That alone will probably be a very impressive experience for our children – hopefully enriched by many valuable encounters with young people from other countries. We are truly grateful that we can be a part of this.

For more information please click on http://www.humboldt-gymnasium.de/joomla/

Global Peace Games

Posted on August 9, 2014 by MD Posted in Editor .

The Global Peace Games features schools from Belgium, England and Germany. Hosted by the Peace Village, Messines, Belgium, the week long EU funded event, 16th September, 2014, is inspired by the Christmas Truces. The NCFA will be supporting four schools from England taking part in a series of activities including: football, rugby, cricket and cycling. Pending funding it is hoped that the GPGs will link up with the Peace Fields Project, celebrating peace and commemorating the First World War.

In more than 40 countries, they are already a tradition: the Global Peace Games (GPG). An initiative from the United Nations to attract attention on peace initiatives through sports.

Starting from 2014, Peace Village wants to start an annual Flemish edition on the Flanders Peace Field in Messines, next to the place were football was played 100 years ago, during the “Christmas Truces”. Our target group are youngsters from countries who participated in the Great War. The peaceful nature of this site, located in the shadow of the Peace Tower and overlooking the Douve valley, gives this event an international appearance.

Flanders Peace Field

Flanders Peace Field, the educational sister of the Peace Village hostel, in Messines wants to remember the 100^th anniversary of the Christmas Truces to offer international projects concerning peace and sport. During the Christmas Truces of 1914, soldiers came out of their trenches to play a game of football against each other on the field of No Man’s land. The senior officers had many difficulties to shut down the Truces and to convince the soldiers to start fighting again.

This extraordinary event shows the power of football and sport, even in times of war. And this is what Flanders Peace Field wants to promote. And bring youngsters from different countries together, learn from the past, play sports together that leads to peace education and community building.

Global Peace Games

The Global Peace Games for Children and Youth (GPGs) – founded by PLAY SOCCER Non profit International (PSNI) in 2001 – is the first global “grass-roots” event to celebrate the contribution of children and youth to the achievement of the United Nations goals for peace, non-violence and human development, and to unite their voices and support through the universal language of sport. Locally organized and financed by grass-roots communities, the Games feature friendly sporting events and football/soccer matches that give children and youth an opportunity to lead and personally commit to global friendship and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Thanks to the joyful, global digital network that children and youth now use to connect to each other across the world, the impact and success of the GPGs continues to grow every year. In 2013, the Games were celebrated – and digitally shared – by thousands of children and youth in 35 countries across 6 continents. Fuelled by a wellspring of support from hundreds of volunteer and civil society organizations committed to peace education, the GPGs are free and open to all. Connecting and uniting children and youth from places as diverse as the Palestinian Occupied Territories to California and the rural communities of Kenya, the GPGs provide a low-cost “grass-roots” organizing structure that empowers local organizations, brings communities into the global media spotlight, and engages children and youth to place collaborative, peaceful values at the heart of both the local and global agenda.

Individual countries often dedicate their games to themes that advance the objectives of the United Nations, and enliven them with both traditional and innovative educational performances of music, art,dance and poetry.

To forge links among the participating children and youth, PLAY SOCCER encourages three common core actions wherever the Games are held:

1. Signing the Nobel Laureates’ Manifesto for A Culture of Peace & Nonviolence

2. Reading Special Messages from the UN Office of Sport for Development & Peace, and other leading organizations such as FIFA

3. Giving the Handshake of Friendship

PSNI is proud to have provided international leadership for the Games by distributing invitations and instructions for participation and by producing the Annual Certificate of Participation and Report, which is posted on our website. The Games would not be possible, however, without the inspirational leadership of our grassroots partners – the many organizations, schools and individuals who work tirelessly to bring the Games to their communities. This report includes a list of all registered organizations, summaries of their reports, and photos selected from the many wonderful pictures sent. All the photos contained in this report are the property of these organizations.

Flanders Peace Field & Global Peace Games

Concept:

This project came to a close starting from the story of the Christmas Truces and WWI. By organizing this under the name of the Global Peace Games, this event gets an international dimension and is it also in conformity with the norms and values set by the United Nations.

Message for peace

During this 5 day program of sport, games, education and remembrance, we want the pupils to re-experience how to overcome conflict through sports and dialogue. It is like a tribute to the young people / soldiers who fought during WWI. 100 years later, instead of fighting, we play sports and reflect on what happened back then. In addition, we also want to make the connection to the contemporary conflicts (large and small) in our society, both within and outside Europe.

We also want to consider the role that sport can have in this type of conflict. Overall, we want to stimulate/ strengthen the thinking process on micro-level from the participating youth. The overall ambition is related to the statement that we want to make. A statement we will develop during the 5 days, together with the pupils. We aspire to advance something more concrete than ‘no more war’. But the project itself is also a statement: 100 years later we prefer playing sports together than to fight each other with guns. That is our “message for peace”.

Sport

The common thread throughout this event is sport. Each school will represent sport popular in their country. The UK will represent rugby, Germany football and Belgium cycling.

In addition, and in collaboration with the Belgian Cricket Federeation, a fourth sport will be added: Cricket. Cricket is, next to football, the biggest sport played in the world, but in our cultures relatively unknown. Together with professional cricket players, the pupils will learn all about this sport.

Participants

The participants are young people who attend school in the Fourth and Fifth Form (age equivalent: 14-16). The participating nationalities are the countries that were most present during WWI on our Belgian soil, namely: British, Germans and Belgians.

Partners

As this is an international event, with youngsters from three different countries, we are happy to announce one German and one British organisation are willing to be our partner for this event. Here a brief presentation:

German partner: 1914 Mitten in Europa

“1914 Mitten in Europa” is project of the local authority of the Rhineland (Landschaftsverband Rheinland) for the commemoration of World War I and the communication of the history of the time of the Great War.

The project involves many exhibitions and educational projects. In one of the educational projects – “Searching for traces of 1914” – students from Belgium, France, Poland and Germany researched on the history of World War I and created a virtual and several analogue exhibitions. During the project the students met in Messines and visited the sites of World War I in Flanders.

British partner: National Children’s Football Alliance

NCFA seeks to protect children and to secure the most enjoyable, developmental and child-centred football experience when they play. NCFA create playing environments and formats which allow all children to reach their full potential in football and play the game without prejudice. NCFA eliminates factors which cause boys and girls to drop out of football and they promote football for fun throughout childhood. Ultimately, the NCFA’s aim is to protect childhood through football.

The NCFA’s extended children’s focused organisations form a vital network of partnerships sharing best practice in all stages of childhood. The NCFA will be accessible to all communities seeking advice on the children’s game.

Globally, children contribute immeasurably to the game of football’¦as players, as fans, as workers and in many other ways. Without doubt, the power of football to be an influential and dominant force for good in the daily lives of children worldwide is enormous.