AC Milan on their website have announced that Fondazione Milan is delighted to present the winner of “From Milan to the World”, the international charity contest that invited the Rossoneri fans across the globe to learn about six socio-educational projects in six different cities, carried out by as many different organisations, and vote their favourite.
The projects taking part in the contest – all united by a belief that sport can be a tool for change, education and inclusion – received over 27,000 votes in total, 53.2% of which went to Alice for Children. The latter presented a sporting project that aims to respond to the needs of girls living in the slums of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, helping them chase their dreams. For the past 15 years, the organisation has been providing food, clothing and medical and educational support to 2,500 children that have been removed from child labour.
The €50,000 prize will support Alice for Children in their activities and the development of the proposed project in a city of five million citizens, 60% of whom live in the 110 slams that surround the city centre. Here, the rate of AIDS infection is 60% and mainly affects women and children.
26% of children between the age of 5 and 14 work in extreme conditions: 12 hours a day for less than 2 dollars; 300,000 children – of which 60,000 live out on the street, the so-called “street children” – and around 6,000 of them work in Dandora dump, the biggest open-air dumpsite in Africa and the most polluted in the world.
The donation will help Alice for Children to implement a vast programme of medical and psychophysical support aimed at valuing girls and combating sexual and psychological abuse, female genital mutilation and early pregnancy.
The Alice for Children project is set to involve over 1,300 girls from ages 10 to 18, who attend six schools in the slums, with the aim to create the very first football league for girls who live in the slums of Nairobi. Eight teams will participate in this tournament and will play against each other each weekend. For the opening of the league and the finals, events and activities will also be hosted for the whole community to raise awareness and educate the youth on themes related to gender equality and respect for human rights.
The foundation of the initiative is the belief that sport can become the perfect tool to allow girls to become – in the future – strong and independent women. The competition on the pitch will become a pretext to the recognition of the girls’ own strength and value, allowing them to learn how to fight for their own rights and a more inclusive society.
