All-European Action week dedicated to prevention of racism has come to an end. We are proud to tell that we have managed to realize all our planned events.
Apart from the traditional football tournament “FARE-Eurofan” we carried out number of actions aimed at drawing people’s attention to the problem of racism.
Thus starting from 1 October we initiated a drawing contest for children studying in Lviv schools with the topic “Football against racism”.
We received more than 80 artworks and it was not an easy task to choose winners as almost every picture was unique with respect to children’s fantasies and perception of the said problem of racism.
Nevertheless, any contest should have winners, and during the celebration ethno-party organized after the tournament captains of participated teams made their choice.
About the party in short: it took place on Monday, following the tournament, in one of the most popular among foreigners disco clubs in Lviv – “METRO”.
The awarding ceremony was the main point, also the party’s program included different competitions and disco dancing, the DJ mixed popular dance hits with ethno-music. The Moroccans (the winners of the football tournament “FARE-Eurofan”) and the Poles (representatives of the biggest expat community in Lviv) were the most active participants.
Those kids, who had won the drawing contest, got their prizes from the Nigerian player of FC “Karpaty” Samson Godwin and the president of the Public organization “Karpaty” Oleh Soldatenko. Together they attended lessons in 5 different schools and presented to the winners their prizes and mementos.
All children’s artworks were displayed in hallways of the second floor of the Lviv City Council building.
Also in main streets of Lviv during the FARE Action Week period one could see 20 city-lights (junior panels) informing Lviv citizens, tourists and guests about the European initiative.
Separately we would like to tell about the action “Red card”. Before kick-offs of the Ukrainian Premier League calendar matches FC “Lviv” v FC “Kharkiv” and FC “Karpaty” v FC “Metalurg” teams’ players showed symbolic red cards to all issues of racism.
It is a shame that administrations of football clubs “Tavriya” and “Zorya” turned down our propositions and refused to demonstrate red cards before their matches despite the fact that initiative was backed by the Football Federation of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Premier League. Unlike them leaders of FC “Karpaty” and FC “Lviv” willingly cooperated with us.
That’s what the FARE Action week was like in Lviv in 2008. We hope we managed to draw people’s attention to one of the most serious social problems in Europe. Besides, according to feedback of specialists from the Vienna office, this social week turned out to be a good promotion for our city in Europe. |
