Arsenal has engaged and inspired young people with community football programmes in north London for over thirty years.
In 2016, we partnered with Save the Children to take this work into new parts of the world.
We have built football projects in Iraq, Indonesia, Somalia and Jordan that combine our football and humanitarian expertise together – to offer vulnerable children a safe place to play football.
Yasmine, Iraq, said “When the bombing started I was so scared. It kept getting worse and worse until we had to escape. The day we left my home was the worst day of my life; I thought we would only be gone for two days so I didn’t say goodbye to my friends. We’ve been stuck in the camp for two years now and life is really hard – it’s hot and dirty and we often get sick. When the football pitch was built it was such a good day. I love going there because it makes me forget everything and I can just be happy playing with my friends. At first, the boys didn’t like us playing football but now our skills have improved they respect us more".
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
