Iraq

In cooperation with the Danish organization Cross Cultures Project Association and the Swedish International Development Agency, CCPA Iraq and al-Salaam Football School have started the Open Fun Football Schools project.

 

The project will during the coming years conduct more than 36 Open Fun Football Schools in different regions of Iraq for thousands of girls and boys. CCPA Iraq will also educate hundreds of volunteer coaches and instructors in developing sports activities for children. Furthermore, several initiatives and conferences will be held together with ministries, federations and municipalities to improve grassroots sports for children in Iraq.

 

The meaning of Open Fun Football Schools is to facilitate friendship and sports co-operation between people living in divided communities, and CCPA Iraq's work will bring together trainers, parents and children from different ethnic and social backgrounds.

 

The CCPA activities are open to everyone regardless of talent, gender, ethnic or social background,religious or political affiliations. To CCPA, children's football does much more than building relations among children, coaches and sports clubs. Children's football constitutes an important platform in civil society, where people from different backgrounds can meet and bond while discussing: children - welfare - future and the development of children's football.

 

Every year tens of thousands of Danish high-school students give a day of their education to raise funds for a development project.
In 2012, the funds will go to CCPA’s youth and educational project in Iraq. This was decided on Sunday the 4th of December at the annual assembly for the organisation behind this amazing initiative, Operation Dagsvaerk. CCPA will realize the project in 2013-15.

Operation Dagsvaerk (litteraly: Operation a Day´s Work) is not a traditional relief organisation. The organisation wants to challenge the popular media image of people in the developing world, and show that people in the developing world have dreams and hopes as well as human resources to match. They deserve a chance to put their resources to use and realize their dreams.

 

In cooperation with Operation a Day’s Work (OD) we will use our sport activities to empower the youth population of Iraq. OD is a Danish initiative, where high school students every year get involved in a specific project. They help to create awareness and debate around the issue of concern and perform a day’s work for companies and others in order to raise money for the given project.

This is hopefully what CCPA’s project in Iraq, “Grassroots” can do. The project will educate young men and women, and support them in developing an active and strong club and association culture, which will include people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds. The young people will be educated as club leaders and given the tools to establish clubs and associations all over Iraq in order for them to be included in society, take responsibility and get the opportunity to make a better future for the children and youth in the war-torn country.
CCPA and our partners in Iraq are looking very much to the cooperation with Operation Dagsværk.

 

The project idea that we proposed and which we are now able to realise is concerned with the youth in Iraq. Around 30 million people presently live in Iraq and the population is among the youngest in the world, almost half of the country’s inhabitants are below 20 years of age. This tremendous group have had their childhood and youth destroyed by a war they have no share in, and in addition to a unstable and insecure living they are put on hold, waiting; waiting for a chance to study, to work, get married, be heard, taken seriously and achieve influence in their own life and the society – waiting to start a life of their own!

 

The project will be implemented in cooperation with OD and the local organisation Al Salaam. Al Salaam was founded in 2003 by an Iraqi refugee with inspiration from the work of Cross Cultures. Today Al Salaam has great experience with mobilising volunteers and working with sport across ethnical and religious groups all over Iraq, and additionally they have good contacts to Iraqi government authorities. 

The wish of Cross Cultures and Al Salaam is to establish a movement among young men and women in Iraq, that through the education of ‘association-aviators’ and local association-activities, seeks to motivate and prepare a generation of youth to participate in society, achieve influence and rebuild a peaceful and democratic Iraq. The project has three objectives we wish to address namely:

 

•  Age-tyranny has in many Arab countries kept the youth from participating in and influence the society they live in. Cross Cultures and Al Salaam want to provide the youth with tools and networks that prepare them for active participation. 

 

•  War, insecurity and internal divisions are the reality of these young people’s life. Although CCPA and Al Salaam cannot solve the conflict in Iraq with our schools, we believe that our project and tools will provide the youth with positive narratives of friendships and cooperation: narratives that contradict those of conflict and which through support and nurture can grow strong and overshadow the negative impulses of war. We want to use these narratives of friendship and cooperation to create a sustainable network-organisation which cuts across the conflict-frontiers and which promotes Dialog, Reconciliation and peaceful coexistence.

 

•  The situation for Iraqi girls and women is particularly critical. Besides age-tyranny and war, girls and women’s access to schools, sport, local and national influence are considerably below their fellow male citizens. With focus on Gender Equality our goal is a minimum 30% female participation in our activities. By getting girls and women involved in local civil society activities we hope to contribute a future in which girls and women are secured an equal place in the society of Iraq.

 

For more information about Operation Day's work, please visit: www.od.dk

 

CCPA Iraq Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ccpairaq