The Ball at festival 23

Festival 23 Youth Delegates dancing the Festival23 dance

By Sarah Van Vooren, Atoot Co-Founder, Equal Playing Field Ambassador and part of our Spirit of Football Family

The Ball’s journey has landed in Sydney!

For 8 days, we were a part of Festival23, where we were leading a handful of workshops and join in different Football for Good community activities and public events.

Festival23 is a global Football for Good event, gathering 70 young women delegates from more than 40 countries – all who are a part of various Football for Good organization’s in their respective countries – and 2,500 young people from Australia, celebrating the transformative power of football.

Festival23 is hosted by Football United, Creating Chances and Common Goal. Anne Bunde-Birouste, Football United’s Founder & Creating Chances Director, worked SO hard to bring this festival to Australia (where both organizations are based) to coincide with the Women’s World Cup. George Springboard, Head of Community & Programmes of Common Goal, also worked alongside Anne to bring the festival to his home country. We are all thankful for their herculean efforts to put together this impactful event.

The Festival 23 Pacifica delegation

Driven by the inclusive spirit of women’s football, Festival23 is an opportunity to create awareness and tackle critical issues facing the world, with programmes dedicated to advancing the United Nations Global Goals focusing on gender equality, climate action, youth employability and diversity and inclusion.

Spirit of Football, with the assistance of Equal Playing Field and Football for Future, was delivering the climate change workshops. As climate change awareness is such an important facet of this festival the organizers have calculated all the participants’ carbon footprint and will completely offset them!

The Opening Ceremony of Festival 23 featured amongst others an indigenous smoke ceremony, to welcome everyone to the indigenous lands of Sydney

We are very happy that we were a part of this great festival which was showcasing Football for Good’s contribution to a more equal and sustainable world and inspire everyone in the game to play their part. Click on the next blog posts to read more about our workshops at Festival 23.

Festival 23 Youth Delegates dancing the Festival23 dance

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *