{"id":7507,"date":"2024-10-18T11:18:21","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T11:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/?p=7507"},"modified":"2024-10-18T11:18:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T11:18:21","slug":"the-cfa-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/uncategorized\/the-cfa-in-new-zealand\/","title":{"rendered":"THE CFA IN NEW ZEALAND"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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SOUTHLAND FOOTBALL LINK<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PEACE FIELD PROJECT OCTOBER 2024<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

UPDATE 09\/10\/24<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Children’s Football Alliance were special guests at Southland Football, Turnbull Thomson, Park, Invercargill, New Zealand. <\/p>\n\n\n

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‘The first Peace Field Project peace pitch in New Zealand has been a huge success<\/strong>,’ Iain Walker, Football Development & Operations Manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘A lot of people, young and old, connect with the Peace Pitch. It is an added dimension for football coaches and facilitators. The peace pitch promotes sportsmanship and friendship in a way that gets people talking<\/strong>‘. Alexander, Volunteer Football Coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Children’s Football Alliance delivered Peace Field Project workshops for 6 to 10 yr olds and 11 to 13 yr olds. ‘The story of the Christmas truces is amazing<\/strong>‘. Findlay, Footballer.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Children’s Football Alliacne’s Paul Cooper (left) presented Southland Football’s Iain Walker (right) with a CFA shirt. ‘The work Southland Football do for all communities is examplary. It is testament to them that the Peace Field Project’s peace pitch is at the heart of their feel good factor<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information about Southland Football’s Peace Field Project READ HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Peace kaupapa: Bringing the Peace Pitch project to Invercargill last week are Children\u2019s Football Alliance Charitable Trust founder Ernie Brennan (left) and co-founder Paul Cooper near the Troopers\u2019 Memorial monument.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PHOTO: NINA TAPU<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PEACE education through play is at the heart of an international children\u2019s charity that has left its mark on a Southland football pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founders of the Children\u2019s Football Alliance (CFA) placed a plaque at the Southland football pitch as part of the Peace Field Project last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CFA co-founder Paul Cooper said the aim of the project was to teach children peace education through sport, music and the arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are 75 peace pitches in six continents and the idea was based around the Christmas truce in Belgium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During World War 1, on Christmas Eve, there were several Christmas truces where the fighting stopped for a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1914, Allied soldiers met German soldiers in no-man\u2019s land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They buried their dead, exchanged gifts, showed pictures of their loved ones and, in some cases, took their jackets and helmets off, and had a game of football, Cooper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Cooper and fellow cofounder Ernie Brennan, along with Iain Walker from Football Southland, placed a plaque at the football pitch at Turnbull Thompson Park, acknowledging the International Day of Peace which was on September 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018If you can have a game of football against your enemy during a world war, maybe anything is possible,\u2019\u2019 Brennan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018So what we do is that when a pitch is twinned, a plaque goes on to their pitch, like what we\u2019ve just done with Southland Football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018The other plaque goes on the Peace Pitch in Flanders, Belgium, which is the most important football pitch in the world, in terms of its significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018Once you\u2019ve twinned a pitch, children from your community can go to the Flanders Peace Pitch for a week in September,\u2019\u2019 Brennan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, about 60 children from 20 countries. including Northern Ireland, Scotland, Croatia and India, attended the Peace Field Project for a week of peace education through play in Belgium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among them were tamariki who were from war-torn countries and refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018There were children who came from Delhi in India who lived in the slums and who\u2019d never been out of Delhi, let alone a different continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018And then there were refugee children that were based in Belgium from a number of different countries who had come for a week of peace,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The charitable trust encouraged equity and diversity and ensured there were an equal share of genders, abilities and backgrounds playing all types of sports and taking part in the programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018They come from different communities, and that\u2019s how they connect. so they can contextualise today with the historic of what happened over a hundred years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018It\u2019s pretty hard to turn against different communities when you\u2019ve grown up playing together.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trust\u2019s founders hope the placing of plaques at peace pitches in Aotearoa, Australia, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga will spur children to ask the question: \u2018\u2018What is a peace pitch?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOUTHLAND FOOTBALL LINK PEACE FIELD PROJECT OCTOBER 2024 UPDATE 09\/10\/24 The Children’s Football Alliance were special guests at Southland Football, Turnbull Thomson, Park, Invercargill, New Zealand. ‘The first Peace Field […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7508,"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions\/7508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.childrensfootballalliance.com\/football-and-peace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}