Dear Oyungerel:

Thank you for participating in this collaborative competition. We value the time and effort you’ve put forth and we would like to offer you feedback and some thought provoking questions from our Evaluation Team.

The concept of using organized soccer and the tradition of setting aside land for public use to counter overdevelopment and preserve open spaces for child recreation is unusual and interesting. While there were no clear plans to scale the project, it would be easily replicable elsewhere. Finally, the funding sources for this proposal were somewhat unclear, as was the source of future funding, and by relation, long-term sustainability.

Please use this input as both potential insights into your innovations, as well as constructive ideas for how to improve or grow your organization.

Warm regards,
The Changemakers Team

Tany temtsliig demjij baina!
Niigmiin sain saihny tuluu hiij baigaa
tanai sangiin ajil uilst amjilt husye!

That's great idea! I support you!
We are together for that goodness for kids!

Munkhtur from Los Angeles,

A project to ensure 90 kids a safe place to gather and train a collective sport like soccer;
A project to help a community secure public space and enhance its cohesion;
A simple project as another step toward public regulation making and against corruption;

This is a wonderful idea and we are greatful to get a chance to support it.

I suppose boundary markers and signs can just be torn down. But kids and adults (communities) who own the space and use it are much more difficult to deal with. Eventually you will get your laws to protect the parks, but in the meantime I think sports is a wonderful way to organize.

Hi Oyungerel,

One of the great things about this competition is how makes me think about how sport ties in with other areas of public and social life. It never occurred to me that sport also connects to the growing deabte on public space, city development and gentrification, but of course it does, as your project shows. Thanks for letting me see this! I found an article you might find interesting:

Public space, sports, and the city of Toronto
http://spacing.ca/play-ed.htm

It´s - just like your project- a great starting point for a discussion on sport and social entrepreneurship, in fact. Just as in you case, much is made here of the clash between financial and private/non-profit interests. Central lines there:

"You can’t make play time — for grown-ups and kids alike — appear valuable on a balance sheet. It doesn’t bring in any money. Yet it is important."

Agreed, certainly, to the importance, even in absence of any financial gains. I wonder, though, whether the SE community and the tools developed there do not provide more strategies than just claiming (however rightfully) that money isn´t everything. Some have been pointed out, but what comes to my mind in general, especially when dealing with state authorities, is the value of pointing to the many ways in which free public recreational spaces indirectly help attracting money into a city or saving the authorities money, i.e. how for example it is easier to attract bright and skilled people to a city in which they and their kids can actually play or how healthy kids cost less in health care, plain and simple. I´m also sure there are studies available demonstrating the positive effect of youth programs (which require free public spaces) on crime and drug abuse. All in all, I guess, it´s about mobilizing reasearch from areas like crime prevention, healthcare, workforce development etc., and getting them to the authorities = valuable even on a balance sheet.

Best wishes,

Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University

Here are a few relevant case studies from Ashoka's Citizen Base Initiative illustrating how other organizations have tackled financial barriers in similar situations:

http://www.citizenbase.org/en/node/2769

http://www.citizenbase.org/en/node/2896

http://www.citizenbase.org/en/node/2863

http://www.citizenbase.org/en/node/3017

"I continue to look for funding for children's uniforms."

The ultimate would be to get the developers to sponsor the teams and tournaments.

Would teams from around the city pay to compete in a tournament?

If you secured the material, would the families surrounding the open space sew the uniforms? That would build in deeper commitment from the surrounding community, the little team would become their home team.

Could you use part of the land for a community garden and sell the produce to finance the sports teams?

I'm just tossing out ideas.

Hi, Oyunderel! Your initiative reminded me of another one that has been usualy taken down here in Brazil regarding public spaces for comunity use. A traditional football Brazilian practice called "futebol de várzea" which dated back the early 1930's, was runnig the risk of desapearing in São Paulo due to the estate market growing in the 1990's. Fotebol de várzea is not played in a regular square, but in the "wilde", alongside river flooded areas, specialy when it appeared. The football players and a circus stand up for the rigth to have this kind of game being protected as a cultural heritage of the city and the lands are protected nowadays by cultural laws and the area was included in the city zoning. Don't you have any kind of legal disposition like this? It may be a possibility.

Best,

MArta

Dear Oyunaa,

our Tsahimurtuu NGO strongly supports your initiative and will be happy, if you win the contest and can implement this project and make rural Mongolian children happy by providing them possibility to play soccer and to feel the spirits of the sport!

All the best,

Enkhe

Thank you. We support you

Ziba, thank you for your immediate response. I will check letmeplay.com! Thanks a lot for good ideas. oyuna.

Oyunderel!
This is so interesting! There are so many other groups in this competition that I could imagine using a similar strategy...from the more benign examples of communities where public space is at a premium - we had a similar example with a court the NBA was hoping to support in the slums of Sao Paolo - to more extreme examples......Palestinians and bulldozers?! Also, check out letmeplay.com - its a bit american-centric, but communities in Los Angeles and New Orleans are using a tape that is similar to that used by police at crime sites to demarcate areas that they would like to be set aside for public places to play. That might be another interesting addition to your strategy!
Best of luck
ziba