Werder Bremen teaches young adults to become children’s football coaches near Ukraine

Werder Bremen teaches young adults to become children’s football coaches near Ukraine

SV Werder Bremen and other clubs which are part of the Football Club Social Alliance (FCSA), went to the Gura Humora region between Romania and Ukraine in order to train 39 young adults to become children’s football coaches. The “Fun Football Festival” with almost 100 children from the Gura Humora region rounded off the young coach training.

The war in Ukraine has triggered the largest wave of refugees in Europe since the Second World War, with countless people seeking protection throughout Europe and within their own countries. In order to provide “safe spaces” for children, the Football Club Social Alliance (FCSA) is training 39 committed young adults from Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Moldova to become football coaches for children. They are trained to use football for psycho-social support and to promote the integration of affected children.

The first training module took place from 24 to 28 April 2023 in Suceava, a small Romanian town about 50 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. Due to its location, the city is one of the first points of contact for Ukrainian refugees and has developed into a humanitarian center in the region during the conflict. For the 39 prospective young coaches, the city thus reflects the reality of their lives and enables them to directly apply what they learned during the first project week.

They were guided by four Football Club Social Alliance instructors from clubs such as SV Werder Bremen, FK Austria Wien and 1 FSV Mainz 05, who not only taught the participants the basics of children’s football, but also showed them how to use educational games in sport to teach social contents such as mental health and integration. On Wednesday, the young coaches already led a training session with about 130 Ukrainian and Romanian children and on Friday they conducted a “Fun Football Festival” with almost 100 disadvantaged children from the region.

“I think, especially in uncertain times and contexts like this, sport can definitely be something that gives people security that they can’t get anywhere else. Sport can build a bridge here, break down barriers, be a place where people come into exchange and where friendships are formed. I’m sure the young coaches took a lot away with them and will now work on focusing on common ground, support and friendship in their work with kids.”

Henrik Oesau, CSR manager at SV Werder Bremen

The young coaches are now starting directly into the second training module, which takes place online. Via an online learning platform, they deepen the contents of the first module and are sensitised via webinars to relevant topics such as prevention of sexual violence and exploitation as well as child trafficking. For the final part of the training, the Young Coaches and the FCSA will meet in July in Warsaw, Poland.

“I was a bit excited beforehand because I find the task of working so close to a war zone with many different nationalities and training coaches very exciting. I find it impressive to experience the development of the young coaches over the course of the week, and of course, I hope that they will then take the knowledge back to their communities and apply the content they have learned here when coaching the children.”

David Schmieg, Werder Bremen Director of the football school

The first module of the young coach training was carried out by the FCSA clubs and Scort in close cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the local implementing partner “Association Sport for All Suceava” and supported by the Fondation Botnar.