Women In goal at global tournament
WOMEN IN GOAL AT GLOBAL FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT
3 November 2008, The Homeless World Cup today announced a partnership with Women Win to bring the powerful life-changing benefits of football to thousands of homeless women and their communities around the world.
The partnership begins with 20,000 euros funding from Women Win for the development of women’s grass roots football in Columbia, enabling Team Columbia to make its debut at the global tournament In addition, Women Win also initiates a Challenge Award of 5,000 euros that will be awarded to one of the community organisations participating in the Homeless World Cup in December to help them implement their ideas for sustainable programmes for homeless girls and women in their home country. As the partnership grows it will also look for opportunity to create social enterprises that contribute to sustainable change for women and girls and their communities.
The Homeless World Cup is an annual international tournament, which provides the opportunity for people who are homeless to change their own lives. The 6th Homeless World Cup takes place in Melbourne from 1-7 December 2008, which will include the first Women’s Cup in the tournament’s history. 8 national women’s teams will participate from Cameroon, Columbia, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Zambia, Liberia and Paraguay.
77% of players involved experience a significant life change; no-longer using drugs and alcohol, moving into homes, jobs, education, training, repairing relationships and becoming coaches or players with semi-pro teams. 94% claim to have a renewed motivation for life. Michele da Silva played for Team Brazil at the Copenhagen 2007 tournament and was recently selected for Brazil U21’s Women’s squad. Cherie from Team Liberia has won a 4-year athlete scholarship to a USA college.
Mel Young, Founder & President, Homeless World Cup commented: Women participating in previous Homeless World Cup’s have been tremendously successful in changing their lives. They become change-makers and inspirational leaders in their communities. We want to invite many more women to participate and a partnership with Women Win that will grow as both organisations develop is great way to create effective lasting change.”
Founder and Executive Director of Women Win, Ms Astrid Aafjes said: “Homeless World Cup and Women Win share mutual values and goals using sport as an empowerment strategy for homeless and disadvantaged girls and women worldwide. By working together we can further raise awareness and have a greater impact.”
“Women Win is proud to support the Colombia homeless women’s team this year. The position of women is very difficult in Colombia due to the years of conflict. Especially this group, homeless women, they suffer from gender related violence, low levels of education and are working on the streets from young ages”
To make a donation to the Women’s Homeless World Cup visit www.globalgiving.com/womenscup
For more information about the Homeless World Cup go to www.homelessworldcup.org and Women Win go to www.womenwin.org
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Notes to editors
About Women Win (womenwin.org)
Women Win is a non profit organisation that advocates for and funds organisations that are using sport and physical activity as a strategy for empowering girls and women worldwide. Women Win believes that through participating in sport, women can become strong and confident leaders, take public space and break stereotypes of what women can and should do, and become more in control of their own development, improving their lives and lives in their communities. Women Win currently supports 15 organisations in 12 countries, directly impacting over 5000 girls and women worldwide. For more information visit: www.womenwin.org
About Homeless World Cup (www.homelessworldcup.org)
The Homeless World Cup is a world-class international football tournament that has triggered and supports grass roots football programmes in over 60 nations engaging 30,000 players who are homeless all year round.
At the 6th Homeless World Cup in Melbourne 1-7 December 2008, 56 nations will be united for a tournament that includes the first women’s cup and a legacy of 30 street soccer programmes rolled out by The Big Issue in Australia.
The inaugural Homeless World Cup kicked off in Graz, Austria uniting 18 nations. Since then it has gained great momentum in Gothenburg, Sweden (2004), Edinburgh, Scotland (2005), Cape Town, South Africa (2006) and Copenhagen, Denmark (2007). It will visit Milan in 2009.
The Homeless World Cup is supported by UEFA, Nike, The Vodafone Foundation, Global Ambassador Eric Cantona and international footballers Didier Drogba and Rio Ferdinand.
For more information please contact:
Kat Byles
Homeless World Cup
+44 (0)7901 701334
kat@homelessworldcup.org
Cindy Coltman
Women Win
+31(0) 625 524361
c.coltman@womenwin.org