Dhaka: A delegation of Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) social responsibility wing Dream Asia Foundation has completed a three-day official visit in Bangladesh on Wednesday.
Following visits to the Rayerbazar slum in Dhaka and the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar in the last two days, the visiting AFC officials held a meeting with BFF President Kazi Salahuddin at BFF House in Motijheel where they discussed different aspects of the upcoming social programmes.
BFF General Secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag briefed reporters after the meeting saying that the BFF and AFC have joined hands to work for underprivileged children in Dhaka slums and Rohingya children in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps.
In the meeting, BFF president Kazi Salahuddin said slum children and refugees do not have the chance to play football and have a good time.
“We have some social responsibilities too. This should be a good programme. We can provide equipments and footballs to them and we can utilize the social power of football,” the president said while speaking about the programme.
He added that the project is not like arranging leagues or tournament, but it is a special job based on humanitarian responsibilities.
Advisor to the AFC President, David Michael Borja also talked about the special social programme. He said they had visited Bangladesh last time in May to assess what the confederation can do for underprivileged children in Bangladesh.
“We have the Dream Asia Foundation for social activities through football. The BFF has provided full support regarding this and we are happy and pleased with the support. We have spent 3 days here. Firstly, we visited a slum in Dhaka as we want to do projects for Bangladeshi children as well as for refugees,” Borja said while talking to the press after the meeting.
He said the AFC will work with the JAAGO foundation for setting up football programmes in some schools in Dhaka. Borja added that after visiting the Rohingya camps, the AFC has gathered knowledge about the programme’s possibilities and it will be implemented as a pilot project before the end of the year.
Brian Suskiewicz, Chief Executive Strategist of Coaches Across Continents, said the AFC will take on projects to train coaches in slums and refugee camps to use football for social change involving both boys and girls. He added that they will organize fun football festivals for children to enjoy the beautiful game.
When asked if BFF will hunt for talents from these projects, president Kazi Salahuddin said the federation will surely look for natural talent and bring them in for nurturing.
David Borja said in the meeting that AFC will soon come up with a concrete plan to set up the pilot project and the next phase will be a six month actions plan.
