Background

The aim of our year in Brazil will be to engage people in sport from schools and education departments, but also from the surrounding favelas where most young people do not attend school. Often these children are left with a future involved in crime or drugs. One project in the favela of Tangue involved with a former player invites children to spend the morning playing football and then in the afternoon they do school lessons including learning English. The opportunity to be involved in this is very appealing. Michael and I spent two weeks in Warsaw during Euro 2012 teaching football in young offender centres, drug recreational units and schools with Lionsraw and StreetGames. The culmination of this was a 16 team tournament across two days involving different young offender centres, special schools and drug rehabilitation groups. We have since learned that the tournament will be an annual event and is going to be replicated in 3 other Polish cities. Definitely a legacy left! C