Israel trip for Derbyshire football development worker

25 July 2008

A football development worker from Derbyshire has spent a week in Israel working on a sport-based co-existence programme for Jewish and Arab children, which teaches them to deal with conflict.

Richard Astle, Football Development Worker for the Hat-Trick Project, which is managed by Derby County in the Community, worked on the Football 4 Peace Project that has been running in towns and villages of the Galilee region of Northern Israel since 2001.

The project teaches the children how to deal with conflict and celebrate success together, with the main focus of the project to get Jewish and Arab children to respect each other, play fairly and to work together as a team.

Richard said: "Derby County were highly supportive of the scheme and generously donated football shirts from various English clubs to the project, as well as hosting part of the Run 4 Inspiration fundraising event at Pride Park Stadium."

Richard distributed the shirts to the children at his sessions which proved to be extremely popular with the players.

Richard worked with a Jewish and an Arab coach to deliver football sessions based around the themes of respect, trust, responsibility and fair play over four days. The final day saw the children play in a football festival held in Nazareth with more than 600 players from the project participating. Richard and his coaches even managed to be in charge of the winning team.

The experience of taking part in the project will be invaluable to Richard as he continues to develop the Hat-trick and Kickz Programmes for Derby County in the Community in the Derwent area. Although the circumstances of the participants are extremely different to those in Israel many of the values that were taught to the children are relevant worldwide.

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