FURD
The 2018 All Nations Football Festival took place at the U-Mix Centre on Saturday 4th August. The All Nations is an annual event hosted by FURD and delivered in partnership with Sheffield & Hallamshire County FA.
It aims to use football as a means of bringing people from diverse backgrounds together in ways that lead to positive interactions and contribute towards greater community cohesion.
The festival has a secondary aim of encouraging more Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic (BAME) involvement in organised football. Teams are invited from across the region to participate.
Many of the players are from refugee & asylum-seeker backgrounds, but players also come from more 'generic' communities including white British and second or third generation Asian and Caribbean communities; the hope being that at the end of the event many players leave with an increased understanding of people from different and/or migrant backgrounds.
The event was a huge success with nine teams and over 60 players involved, more than half of those being from Refugee and Asylum Seeker backgrounds.
Congratulations to the winners, Nether Edge United who beat Unity Gym 3-1 in the final. Some of the young Nether Edge team have been involved with FURD's football and youth club sessions.
Events such as this, that aim to bring people together to expel misconceived ideas of people from different backgrounds, have a key role to play in relation to community cohesion; particularly in this current environment of Brexit and increasing intolerance of immigrants and/or 'difference'.
We'd like to thank Sheffield & Hallamshire County FA for their support.
FURD's Belonging Group (football sessions targeted at refugees and asylum-seekers) take place on Wednesday 11am-12:30pm and Friday 8pm-9pm at the U-Mix centre. Please get in touch or just come along if you'd like to join us.
Follow the link below to our Facebook album to see photos from the event.