Of the 50 million Brazilians who live in poverty, 44 per cent are children and young people under the age of 18. In the Semi-Arid Region in the North East of Brazil, 13 million children live with some of the worst social indicators in the country. Three quarters of these children live in poor families, and have no access to quality basic services, leisure, sporting opportunities or positive role models to enable them to become responsible, participating young citizens.
UNICEF is running a project in Brazil through International Inspiration, the sport for development programme of the London 2012 Olympics.We are adding value to an existing initiative ‘Municipal Seal of Approval’, which officially recognises those cities, towns or villages which demonstrate their commitment to improving the standards of services available to children and young people and raising awareness about children’s rights.
International Inspiration has enabled a new area to be added to the Municipal Seal, called 'Sports and Citizenship Social Participation Challenge'. This has provided capacity building for 'sport mobilisation groups' in over 1,000 municipalities, which in turn have organised sport leagues and events.
Everaldo, 36, is a sports administrator and coordinator of one of the sport mobilisation groups in Tarquana, one of the municipalities involved in the initiative. A sports enthusiast since early childhood, Everaldo is trained in physical education, but has benefitted from the extra support from International Inspiration to reach out to his community.
In Tarquana alone, a total of 23 schools and more than 600 children have participated in community sport events as a result of International Inspiration. In total, over 400,000 children and young people have been reached by the programme across all the targeted municipalities.
"I long for a future where sport is taken into consideration in more and more municipalities," says Everaldo. "Sport can’t be taken for granted. It is not only fun, but an important component in building rights awareness and citizenship."
