The CARE Unity Cup

A multi-cultural football festival

Date: 09/12/2006
Venue: Waterfront Leisure Centre, Woolwich, Greenwich, London

Partners: Charlton Athletic Racial Equality (CARE) Partnership, Greenwich Council, Charlton Athletic FC, Refugee Relief Iraq, Truce International.

Nationalities represented: Afghanistan, Britain, Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Ireland, Iran, Jamaica, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Senegal, Somalia, Traveller Community, Uganda, Zimbabwe

This tournament saw over 100 young people from different minority communities take part in the first annual CARE Unity Cup. With over 80 players in ten mixed-teams and over 20 youngsters in the role of team managers, youth leaders and administrators, this was truly a community capacity building events. Lasting over six hours, in addition to football there were other opportunities for the youngsters to interact with each other. There was a chill-out room with music, local DJ’s were invited to provide the music, food from a local healthy food restaurant was also provided, spinning stationary bikes and there was information on the ground-breaking work CARE has been pioneering in the past few years. There were over 17 different nationalities and ethnicities re-presented and once again the mixed-team formula proved to be a vital part of planting the idea of united communities. All participants received t-shirts and winners and runners-up received certificates, prizes and trophies. Local media was present to document the event.

Once again, we will work together with the partners to empower the local youngsters to organize and manage regular events of Football for Unity in 2007 and beyond.