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PRESS ALERT:
WHAT: This is the official opening of a multifunctional sports space in Bogota – the sixth site that ESPN has supported worldwide. This project was designed to provide an opportunity for communities to gain access to places to play sports safely and receive the social benefits sports has to offer. The event will celebrate the work done by community volunteers and ESPN employees to build a safe place for young people to play sports and learn. It will include local music, special performances from the community, and a ribbon cutting ceremony, followed by a showcase of the programing that will take place on the site. Soccer matches will then be open to everyone. The global project was led by ESPN in collaboration with international sports for development organizations, love.fútbol, A Ganar and Colombianitos.
WHO: Hosted by ESPN Talent Andrea Guerrero and Diego Saenz and joined by Eduardo Pokorny, ESPN Senior Director, International Growth and Development, and Juan Bonilla, Director, ESPN Colombia. Additional special guests attending include Carlos Valdes, German Arango, Gerado Bedoya, Guillermo Arango, Sara Correa, Diego Camargo and Camila Zuluaga.
WHY: ESPN, love.fútbol, A Ganar and Colombianitos have come together because they believe in the power of sports to make a difference. By mobilizing the community and ensuring quality sports programming, this space will serve as a hub for local activity and provide a safe place for young people. The new space and accompanying ongoing education and employment training, delivered by Colombianitos, will aim to provide opportunities to the youth of Ciudad Bolívar, giving them and the community a safe gathering place and providing additional tools to help them address some of the challenges they face.
WHEN:
2:00-4:00pm, Thursday, April 12, 2018
WHERE:
Altos de San Jerónimo Lote 3 Guiba-Guabal, Ciudad Bolívar, Bogotá
MEDIA CALL:
2:50-3:30 pm: Media Interviews with ESPN senior leadership and talent
PHOTO CALLS:
2:00 pm: Opening remarks and cultural presentations from the local community
2:25 pm: Remarks from ESPN senior leadership
2:45 pm: Ribbon cutting ceremony
3:15 pm: Soccer matches begin
CONTACTS :
ESPN – Dario Welschen – [email protected]
LABUZCA – Andres Wiesner – [email protected]
thinkBeyond – Radha Balani – [email protected]
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS:
ESPN Corporate Citizenship: ESPN believes that, at its very best, sports uplifts the human spirit. Its corporate citizenship programs use power of sport to positively address society’s needs through strategic community investments, cause marketing programs, collaboration with sports organizations and employee volunteerism, while also utilizing its diverse media assets.
love.fútbol: love.fútbol creates community sports fields that act as community centers and catalysts for sustainable social change. For this project, love.fútbol managed the engagement of the community, ensuring that they were involved from the outset. They oversaw the construction of the sports space itself and helped facilitate local leadership and ownership of the space. They led on identifying the community for the project and facilitated the local partnerships that enabled the entire project to happen.
A Ganar: Led by Partners of the Americas, the A Ganar Alliance combats youth unemployment in Latin America and the Caribbean using team sports. In essence, A Ganar is a youth employment program wrapped inside of a ball. At-risk youth, ages 16-24, acquire marketable job expertise by building on six core sport-based skills: teamwork, communication, discipline, respect, a focus on results, and continual self-improvement. In 7-9 months, youth learn life and vocational skills and complete internships with local businesses. They learn to bring the best values of sport and apply them to the workplace. A Ganar have trained Colombianitos in their methodology.
Colombianitos: Colombianitos works to improve the quality of life of children, youth and their communities, through sports, play, recreation, education and health. It has significant experience in working with young people affected by the conflict in Colombia. It integrates education with structured, community-driven programs supporting young people to attend school and meet academic requirements, while learning life-long values and positive social behavior such as respect, honesty, friendship, tolerance and fair play. For this project, Colombianitos will deliver ongoing programming on the new sports space using the A Ganar methodology.
thinkBeyond: thinkBeyond helps organizations and people that do good, do it better through sport. They are the global experts in providing consultancy and strategy delivery to brands, sports teams, leagues, federations, talent and governments who want to do good business and create positive social change. Having helped create this initiative for ESPN, thinkBeyond now supports in the implementation across the world.
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