Adi Dassler Fund programmes
The Adi Dassler Fund supports organisations that connect children with coaches and programmes to teach life values in addition to sport. These organisations use sport to teach self-confidence, respect and teamwork that can break down barriers and allow people to live healthier, happier lives. The Fund receives assistance from the adidas Brand and its employees around the world.
Right To Play
Right To Play uses specially-designed sport and play programmes to improve health, build life skills and foster peace for children and communities affected by war, poverty and disease. Working in both the humanitarian and development contexts, Right To Play has projects in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Right To Play is the only global-scale implementer of Sport for Development and Peace programmes and takes an active role in driving research and policy development in this area.
Right To Play focuses on four strategic programme areas:
- Basic education and child development
- Health promotion and disease prevention
- Conflict resolution and peace education
- Community development and participation.
Working with partners, funders and local communities, Right To Play tailors every programme to meet identified needs.
The principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child underpin everything Right To Play does. The organisation ensures that our programmes benefit the most marginalised children, including street children, former child combatants, refugees and children affected by HIV and AIDS.
The Adi Dassler Fund, adidas and Right To Play conceived the 'Red Ball Campaign' in 2007. There were two primary objectives. The first was to provide products and financial support to Right To Play programmes around the world. The second was to raise awareness for the Right To Play cause, illustrating the power that sports can have on changing the lives of children.
To accomplish this, adidas supplied 100,000 full-size footballs for Right To Play to use in its programmes around the world; it also had a retail campaign in adidas own retail and factory outlet stores (more than 400 locations around the world). The campaign featured Right To Play and its programmes in the prime locations where adidas stores are located, such as Oxford Street in London. The product sold was a red mini-football, and all proceeds from sales of the ball were donated to Right To Play. Events where Right To Play and adidas partners could be combined, such as at a media event in Athens with footballer Zinedine Zidane, also heightened the awareness for Right To Play's cause and programmes. The plan is to run this campaign for one month a year in each of the next four years.
PeacePlayers International
PeacePlayers International (PPI) is a global organisation that uses sport to unite and educate young people in divided communities.
PPI believes that, 'children who play together can learn to live together'. Its current programmes in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Cyprus and the Middle East bring together thousands of children to form positive relationships, develop leadership skills and improve their futures. Over the past six years, the organisation has worked with more than 45,000 children. PeacePlayers International is led by a global network of youth leaders who work together as coaches, mentors and facilitators.
The Adi Dassler Fund supports PeacePlayers in its Middle East project with financial and product donations. This helps to provide:
- Twinned Basketball Clubs, a network that includes groups from Israeli Jewish, Israeli Arab and Palestinian children under the guidance of a diverse group of coaches
- A Leadership Development Programme, which equips youths from all factions with skills needed to make a positive difference in their communities
- Grass Roots Hoops, West Bank, which works to build capacity and infrastructure in underprivileged areas, along with weekly practice sessions for at-risk children
- BasketPal Camps, where mixed teams compete in basketball and take part in team building and peace education workshops.
As well as supporting these programmes in the Middle East, the Adi Dassler Fund worked closely with PeacePlayers on a new project in New Orleans. PeacePlayers was sent to assess the need for youth development and sports programmes in a post-Hurricane Katrina area. The overwhelming area of need to be addressed was literacy. The goal for the first year of implementation is to have 2,000 participants in PPI programmes in the area.
Coaching for Hope, Burkina Faso
Coaching for Hope uses football to empower disadvantaged young people in the developing world and help make them aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS. This is done by training local coaches and educators to provide football and HIV/AIDS education to vulnerable children in their communities. The local educators take part in intensive courses where they receive training in HIV/AIDS education as well as expert coaching tuition from UK Championship and Premiership football coaches. Once the schools finish they receive ongoing top-up training and support from UK coaches and Coaching for Hope field staff to help them put what they learned into practice. Over time the local educators are trained to run their own Coaching for Hope schools.
Coaching for Hope currently runs programmes in West Africa and South Africa.
adidas started its partnership with Coaching for Hope's programme in Burkina Faso in 2007. During the course of the year various fundraising events were held, involving employees, but also customers and adidas athletes. More than 120 employees from the UK, Benelux and Ireland participated in a fundraising football tournament; over 170 attended a fundraising celebration in Stockport, Greater Manchester. The funds raised were used to support Coaching for Hope in their work in Burkina Faso as well as the Association Managre Nooma for the Protection of Orphans (AMPO) orphanage in Ouagadougou. Employees also support Coaching for Hope through in-kind donations of items such as shoes and clothes.
Diambars Institute, Senegal
Founded in 2003 by professional footballers Jimmy Adjovi-Boco, Saer Seck, Bernard Lama and Patrick Vieira, the Diambars Institute offers promising young players a fulfilling environment where education, football training and life skills come together in a unique learning experience.
Diambars is an educational platform not only for training high-level footballers, but also individuals, role models, conscious of the responsibility they have in society.
adidas France has supported Diambars financially since 2003 and has committed to do so until 2010. A strong relationship has evolved between the Diambars children and adidas France employees. They correspond throughout the year, and during their annual summer trip to France, Diambars children spend a couple of days at employees' homes.
- Sports workshop, Siem Reap, Cambodia