By Ken McCue

Members of Sport Against Racism Ireland’s (Sari) Soccernites programme recently received the President’s Award at the Gaisce headquarters in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

The teenage boys coming from diverse national and ethnic backgrounds carried out volunteer work over a 20-week period by cooking and serving food to people living rough on the streets of Dublin, followed by trekking and bonding sessions in Wicklow.

The youths, varying in age from 16-18, ticked all the boxes by valuing people equally and with integrity along with opening up a pathway to self and group discovery by building ‘social capital’, leading to a strong sense of solidarity.

This is the first of many partnerships that will engage Sari with Gaisce. Priority will be given to supporting a new awards programme Wavelength that works in direct provision centres across the country.

Meanwhile, Sari, through its Living Together Through Football programme with the Glentoran Football Academy in Belfast, will facilitate a proposed interconnectivity project with the Duke of Edinburgh International Award Foundation at the Glentoran-Insaka Football Academy in Abia State, Nigeria.

Over the next two years, under the supervision of SARI youth leader and coach Azeez Yusuff, members of Soccernites along with young women’s programme Hijabs and Hat-Tricks, who are trainees on a pan-European employability programme, will engage in a new innovative Gaisce Award challenge.

Funded by UEFA, streetfootballworld and FedEx, the programme will provide a pathway to the labour force for up to 30 teenagers through the medium of soccer.