Sports Generates Enthusiasm and the Sense of Competition, an Essential Driving Force for the Feeling to Live
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>View discussions about this entry Country: Cameroon
Organization: ASAFE (Association pour le Soutien et l’Appui à la Femme Entrepreneur)
Sport: Soccer
Year the initative began (yyyy) 2004
Project URL: http://www.asafe.org
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? Sports for Social and Economic Inclusion: bringing Hope alife Again
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? Mobilising the Homeless, gives them the feeling to live through play and economic activities. One of these play activities is street football. That brings a lot of enthusiasm in the country
The difference with others is that we work on the spirituality and the body. The persons that we are talking about are those, in despair, who have lost everything about life. They are the marginalized of the society and are roaming the streets for lack of any lucrative activities. Some are those that have lost their job due to the multiple crises that hit the country. They are those we think that can be redeemable through sports. We move into where they live, talk to them, enquire about their back ground and their expectations, encourage them to engage in our community. And our community is play and economic activities and sensitization. We make them get involved in well structured What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? We are hoping to address of social inclusion.
Our target group is faced with stereotyping that excludes them from the society. By practising sports, an opportunity is given for their talents to be exhibited, recognized while they get included into their society. There is despair that lead to varied delinquencies. Our project is to provide our target group with that opportunity of owning a Passport, boarding a plane for their life time and participating in a World tournament “The Homeless World Cup” from where they can have a change in their life Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? Through the organisation of sponsored tournaments. During these tournaments, players of
winning teams obtain rewards from sponsors and have that opportunity of shaking hands, taking photos with public authorities. Apart from receiving such moral booster from public authorities, the most talented ones get selected to form the ASAFE Camaroes Street Football team and represent Cameroon at the Homeless World Cup every year. Participation at the Homeless World Cup has enabled some of our players to get, girls friends upon return, regain name recognition in their society and jobs. How do you plan to grow your innovation? By getting the whole country involved in the project. This will be by setting up
infrastructures that will enable former street football players to organize and coach teams. Their action will help in spreading the sport through out Cameroon. We intend to organize and get legalized, a Street Football Association or Federation of Cameroon. We are seeking for funding for income generating activities for those involved in the Project. The income generating activities include web design, small animal husbandry etc. There is that prospect of creating a Street Newspaper in Cameroon so as to enlarge the finance base and sustain the growth of the project. In other to create more awareness and strengthen the hold of our project on the human folks, we intend to organize a future edition of The Homeless World Cup. Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. Social, economic inclusion and dynamism.
20 young Cameroonians now own Passports and have travelled in a plane for their first time. They have each participated at the Homeless World Cup with 3 now owning girl friends and 6 obtaining What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? 750 persons have been directly served. This include the 400 players, 10 relay officials, 2
Medical Doctors, 1 film Director; involved in the 2004 tournament to launch Street football in Cameroon. You also have the 200 players involved in the campaign to select the ASAFE Camaroes team for 2005 edition of The Homeless World Cup and finally, the 136 players involved in the campaign to select the team for the 2006 Homeless World Cup and 1 person for silkscreen printing.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? Most of the youths that roamed the streets have now moved back to their parents. Some have been invited by local radio stations to tell their success. Most essentially, this reaction by an unlooker when the team returned from its first participation at the Homeless world cup in South Africa in October 2006: "untill you are dead, do not consider yourself a lost man yet. Look at what has happened to these 'rascals', they board a plane to South Africa and back"
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? Funds to acquire equipment and create income generating activities to sustain the project
as well as infrastructures for the sport. Lack of sponsors for infrastructures for those in our target group that will like to create their own jobs. How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? The initiative is financed mainly from ASAFE revenues, some local sponsorship,
international sponsorship like: The Homeless World Cup, Fairplay Trading and the TIBDEN Trust Fund. A) From ASAFE revenue, for the selection of players, camping, obtaining Passports and transport for Danish Visa in Cotonou-Benin for the 2007 Homeless World Cup and salary of 1 staff………….. (6 000 000 FCFA) 12 000 US$ B) FairDeal Trading London: 50 balls for training and preparation...…………2 500 US$ C) TIBDEN trust fund London for setting up of small income generating unit for the project and preparation for the 2007 Homeless World Cup……….……………………………………………..3 000 £ D) The Homeless World Cup Organisation for the flights to Benin for the visa, Airport taxes, purchase of jerseys for the players, return flights Douala-Copenhagen-Douala for the 2007 edition of The Homeless World Cup……………………………………………..21 000 US$ E) MOLIGE Beverages Cameroon, financial support……..300 000FCFA…….600 US$ F) Les Brasseries du Cameroun for assorted drinks………..500 000 FCFA….1 000 US$ G) Vice Mayor of Douala 5 Council, financial support……100 000 FCFA……200 US$ H) NESTLE Cameroon, for assorted beverages…………...300 000 FCFA……600 US$ If known, provide information on your finances and organization. Budget: 26 000 000 FCFA
Revenie generated: 25 100 000 FCFA Part time staff: 2 Full time: 2 Voluteers: 3 What is the potential demand for your innovation? The potential is very high. We have received appeals to have the project extended
to other towns in Cameroon like; Kribi, Limbe and Bamenda. We are limited currently to Douala, the thickest populated town in Cameroon that harbours the highest concentration of homeless peoples in the country. The extension of the project to other towns appears very pressing now so as to avoid congestion due to the influx of homeless migrating from towns yet unattended to and avoid the other problem of space What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? Absence of backup income generating activities to sustain the project and difficult access
to local sponsors. Due to the category of the people involved in and affected by the project, local sponsors seem to forecast zero return on their sponsorship. Such actions, however, are supposed to be considered as being part of their corporate social responsibility. There is that tax policy that is not investment friendly. Capital invested is being taxed. This discourage donors wanting to fund income generating activities to sustain the project. What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. The project started after a presentation of the Homeless World Cup project by Mr Mel Young, the project founder and also, President of the International Network of Street papers, at the World Economic forum in Davos in 2004. Gisele Yitamben was impressed by the social inclusion aspect of the project. She contacted Mr Young so that he could support ASAFE in setting up such a project in Cameroon.
What followed was a massive trial street football tournament involving over 400 homeless people in Douala-Cameroon in April and May 2004. Winning teams received awards in cash and kind. Further striking was that, people of Cameroon saw those hitherto considered as destitute of the society shaking hands with public officials during a sport final. The tournament culminated in the selection of a team to represent Cameroon at the Homeless World Cup in Gothenburg-Sweden. The team however did not make trip to Sweden because it did not obtain visa. The team suffered the same fate a year later for the 2005 edition in Edinburgh Scotland. For the team’s maiden participation in Cape Town South Africa, it emerged 6th out of 48 teams from as much countries. The players found their life changed in varied ways. Some had name recognition; others found jobs while another got a girl friend. The performances of the team in South Africa buoyed the TIBDEN Trust funds of Scotland to sponsor the project for the 2007 edition of the Homeless World Cup in Copenhagen. The team emerged 8th and the coach winning in the 3 best coaches’ prize Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. President and Founder of ASAFE
A social enterprise which supports and promotes entrepreneurs through activities such as: • Technical support for the achievement of better business management practices • Establishing and managing a credit scheme for small loans; carrying out surveys on factors restraining the participation of youths and women in development, the setting up of an electronic commerce program for them. • Establishing a community-based ICT Training Centre and wireless connectivity. • Setting up a Community Resource Centre, a four floor building, that includes a community Internet access centre. • Initiating a local team of Homeless people for Street Football, with the ASAFE team participating at the Homeless World Cup. Contact Information:
Yitamben Gisele
President ASAFE (Association pour le Soutien et l’Appui à la Femme Entrepreneur) (NGO) Discussions about this entry |
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A model for job creation and small scale businesses2.doc |
Hi Gisele,
Great initiative! I notice that you are a women's empowerment organization organizing this project with sports and the homeless. Does this mean that you are also targeting homeless women? Or are you at this point only working with men? I am form Women Win, and we focus solely on supporting projects that use sport to empower women. I would be very interested in knowing more about the problems of homeless women in Cameroon and how sport could be used to bring awareness and solution to the problem. If you are working with women and sports, could you please send some details about your work, challenges and successes? Thanks a lot in advance for your reply,
Astrid Aafjes
www.womenwin.org
Hi Gisele,
I think it´s a really good idea to stop social exclusion of the homeless through football.
1. But I also can imagine that you exclude some homeless, too. What is with the people who are not healthy at all? ...who are not able to play football? Do you pay the medicine they need to get healthy? ...or how does it work?
2. Many of the homeless do not even have something to eat. Do you also provide them with food? ...so they can get strong enough to play football?
I like this idea very much, don´t get me wrong. I´m just asking....
Elise Laatz
Spirit of Football Project Group
University of Erfurt
Dear Elise
Thank you for the interest that you have for our project and the preoccupations raised. Believe me, you are not wrong.
Our project survives through sponsorship. Most of the organisations that sponsor our project include food processing industries. We used proceeds from their sponsorship that include food, drinks and cash to feed the players. And this has worked tremendously well. Their first participation of out team at the Homeless World Cup landed them at the 6th position among 48 teams from as many countries.
Health wise, we have Dr Pierre Marcel Pokam, a specialist in Sports medicine who has been assisting, pro-bono, all our players that have health problems. Dr Pokam has been doing this for the past 4 years that the project since we started the project. He is to say, the life wire of our project.
So, from the foregoing, you can agree with us that we do not exclude any homeless among those involved in our project.
we want to know more from what people feel about our project.
Warm greetings
Aaron
Team Coach for ASAFE Camaroes
Cameroon