In brief

The SOL Foundation renews and extends its co-operation with FundLife International Philippines and the “Football for Life Academy” project with a focus on bringing children and youth back to education, to inspire them to keep on learning and stop further school-drop-outs.

Problem to be tackled

The Football for Life Academy is a direct response to the ongoing educational crisis exacerbated by COVID-19 impact on children’s access to schools and organised team sports. Around 30 months after the start of the pandemic, children have still not returned to full-time face-to-face education. This has disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable children from the most marginalised communities in the Philippines. The height of the impact resulted in children being out of school for over 720 consecutive days.

Local partner

The “Football for Life Academy” project has identified four strategic purposes:

• to bring children and youth back to education, to inspire them to keep on learning and stop further school-dropouts,
• to improve confidence, life-skills, and academic performance of at-risk children through the mentorship approach,
• to restore/create play sessions in communities where they either have stopped since COVID-19 or have never taken place, and
• youth offenders’ demographic only: support youth to re-enter education and/or provide them with pathways to training and/or decent employment.

Beneficiaries

FundLife International Philippines  has an ‘all-in’ approach and welcomes all ability, all gender children.

The communities are selected with consultation from local government offices and trusted community partners, ensuring the programme is reaching those who can benefit most from the intervention, mainly to improve their academic performance and inculcate the value of education through purposeful play.

SOL’s contribution

Project partner

FundLife International Philippines was created with a vision that every child deserves a right to dream and a mission to equip children with the tools they need to reach their full potential. FundLife International believes that all children deserve quality and equitable education, and that holistic learning happens outside of the classroom, by learning through experiential learning and ongoing mentorship.