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One year of FtK Augsburg – The video of the final tournament

Ein Jahr FtK Augsburg - Das Video zum Abschlussturnier

The first FtK year in Augsburg is coming to an end – many wonderful memories will remain. The FtK children and supervisors from the Bärenkeller primary and secondary school were accompanied by a professional camera team as part of the program implementation. In addition to the regular range of skills lessons and soccer training, the “FtK” final tournament in Frankfurt was the big highlight of the year, where the children were able to take home a very special prize.

At the final tournament, the group was able to show how much they had improved in terms of soccer and teamwork. Although the sporting competition was too fierce on the day and they were unable to compete at the top, the Augsburg team shone with their particularly fair and empathetic demeanor. The coaches were very proud of the fact that the children internalized the values they had exemplified in their lessons and training and behaved in an exemplary manner towards their opponents and each other. Consequently, the Augsburg FtK group also emerged victorious, deservedly receiving the award for the fairest team in the tournament.

Images: LitCam / Witters / Jörg Halisch

The FtK Group Augsburg sums up a great and exciting “Fußball trifft Kultur” program year and agrees: everyone had a lot of fun and learned a lot!

Final tournament of “Fußball trifft Kultur” with Ridle Baku, Marcel Reif and Boris Rhein

Abschlussturnier von „Fußball trifft Kultur“ mit Ridle Baku, Marcel Reif und Boris Rhein

Frankfurt, 19.06.2022: At the twelfth final tournament of the nationwide education program “Fußball trifft Kultur” (FtK), around 600 children and young people aged eight to 13 from all over Germany played for the coveted trophies in Frankfurt at the weekend. Guests including national team player and “FtK” ambassador Ridle Baku, commentator legend Marcel Reif and Hesse’s Minister President Boris Rhein joined the children in the excitement. LitCam has been organizing the annual final tournament for all participating children since 2010 – for the fourth time in Frankfurt.

On the pitches of Frankfurt’s Riedstadion, the weekend was all about fun and fair play. On Saturday, 18.06.2022, the children in the U10 age group played out their winner. The team from the Karmeliterschule in Frankfurt was delighted to win the challenge cup. On Sunday, 19.06.2022, the trophy in the U14 age group went to Anne-Frank-Gesamtschule from Dortmund.

Images: LitCam / Witters / Jörg Halisch

The final tournament is the annual highlight of “Fußball trifft Kultur”, which offers the approximately 700 children taking part in the program not only soccer training but also skills training, in particular language development. Training and learning takes place twice a week in two halves at 22 locations across Germany. In addition to the involvement of local professional clubs, the final tournament in particular serves as motivation for the support program. It offers the participating children a goal that they can work towards together as a team and thus experience cohesion, fair play and teamwork at first hand.

In addition to top soccer performances, there were also artistic highlights to marvel at during the final tournament. On Saturday, the program group from Holt Catholic Primary School in Mönchengladbach was named the winner of the FtK Club Challenge. As part of this challenge, the core contents of “Fußball trifft Kultur” – soccer, language and culture – were combined in a playful way. The partner clubs from professional soccer provided the inspiration and motivation. The participating program groups developed a creative presentation of their partner club. The spectrum ranged from specially written songs and self-made stadiums to a presentation of the club’s history in the form of an oversized timeline. The winners from Mönchengladbach impressed with their self-designed paintings of their Borussia, which they presented in a digital vernissage. This group was selected by a prominent jury consisting of Ridle Baku (nationwide FtK ambassador and professional footballer for VfL Wolfsburg), Friederike Behrends (CEO of Deutsche Postcode Lotterie), Franziska Fey (Chairwoman of the DFL Foundation), Tim Gailus (FtK ambassador and KiKA presenter), Silke Mayer (Chairwoman of the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation) and Karin Plötz (Director of LitCam).

The guest list for the past two days was also full of celebrities. Among other things, the participating children were able to enjoy a Q&A session with commentary legend Marcel Reif, who is a trustee of the DFL Foundation. In addition, the national ambassador of “Fußball trifft Kultur”, national player Ridle Baku, visited his FtK children and was on hand to give them advice and support during the tournament on Saturday. On Sunday, Hessian Minister President Boris Rhein presented the trophies to the winners of the U14 tournament.

Images: LitCam / Witters / Jörg Halisch

Ridle Baku, nationwide ambassador of “Fußball trifft Kultur” was impressed by his first meeting with “his” children: “I was very pleased to get to know the “Fußball trifft Kultur” children on site. It was great to see how enthusiastically they took part in the tournament and how much soccer motivates them for an educational program like “Fußball trifft Kultur”.”

Guest of honor Marcel Reif was particularly impressed by the fair interaction between the program groups: “It’s great to see how the power of soccer brings children from different cultures together and how they can experience team spirit, fair play and cohesion during the tournament.”

Hessian Minister President Boris Rhein emphasized the integrative power of soccer: “Sport makes integration possible. That’s the great thing about this tournament: you not only learn to deal with victories, but also to cope with defeats. Soccer shows that everyone gets their chance in life if they are prepared to take it. This also applies to language, learning and academic success. So school and sport have a lot in common.”

As a nationwide cooperation partner, the DFL Foundation has been supporting the integrative education program since 2012. Franziska Fey, CEO of the DFL Foundation, emphasized the central role of the tournament in the project’s success: “The final tournament is the big highlight of “Fußball trifft Kultur” for all the children. It motivates them throughout the school year to work on their language skills, including in remedial lessons. At the tournament, they can now show what they have learned – in terms of soccer, language and social skills. It’s great to see how the groups have grown together and how much fun they have.”

Karin Plötz, Director of LitCam, was delighted with the tournament – especially as the final tournament could finally take place again after a two-year break due to the coronavirus pandemic: “It was a great tournament. Despite the heat, the kids played with great enthusiasm to win the FtK Cup. The highlight for the kids was the visit from Marcel Reif and Ridle Baku, it will be remembered by everyone as a great event.”

Mini documentary about the Augsburg program group at the FtK final tournament 2022

The “Fußball trifft Kultur” children and supervisors from the Bärenkeller primary and secondary school in Augsburg were accompanied by a professional camera team as part of the educational program. In addition to the regular range of skills lessons and soccer training, the final tournament in Frankfurt was the big highlight of the year, where the children were able to take home a very special prize.

Video: DFL Foundation / CUE Media

The final placings:

U10

1st place: Karmeliterschule, Frankfurt am Main

2nd place: Frauenstraße elementary school, Fürth

3rd place: Erich-Kästner-Schule II, Frankfurt am Main

4th place: Regenbogenschule II, Gelsenkirchen

Fairplay Award: Schule an der Glinder Au, Hamburg

U14

1st place: Anne-Frank-Gesamtschule I, Dortmund

2nd place: Stadtteilschule am Hafen, Hamburg-St. Pauli

3rd place: Mont-Cenis Comprehensive School II, Herne

4th place: Herbert Grillo Comprehensive School, Duisburg

Fairplay Prize: Bärenkeller primary and secondary school, Augsburg

We were there: The #EU BeInclusive Sport Awards 2021

Our educational program “Fußball trifft Kultur” was nominated for the #BeInclusive EU Sport Awards 2021.
Each year, the European Commission presents the awards to programs that use the power of sport to empower socially disadvantaged people.

Together with two other great projects from the International Judo Federation (Hungary) and Politecnico de Milano (Italy), we were nominated for the award in the “Breaking Barriers” category with “Fußball trifft Kultur”.
This category addresses projects and programs that specifically overcome barriers in order to increase diversity of opportunity and enable participation in sport.

The award ceremony took place on Wednesday, May 4, 2022, as an in-person and online event in Brussels’ European Quarter.
We ourselves accepted the personal invitation of the European Commission and attended the event.
Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, finally announced the winners in the evening.
In the end, our Italian co-finalists from the Politecnico di Milano were delighted to receive the winner’s trophy with their outstanding project “GIFT”.
We were also very proud of our shared second place and afterwards had inspiring discussions with inspiring personalities from the nominated project sponsors.

The preliminary phase included short interviews with all finalists.
As part of this, the European Commission writes about “Fußball trifft Kultur”:

Thanks to these doses of inspiration provided by FtK, children from underprivileged areas now feel prouder and more prepared when it comes to learning.
With passion as the main ingredient, “Football meets Culture” has figured out a way to balance education, sport and culture.
These three components of pedagogic advancement are best described by the internal motto, ‘Starts little and develops big’. This is the ultimate goal of FtK: to expand social horizons for children from neglected areas.

Click here for the full website article on “Fußball trifft Kultur” published by the European Commission.

European U21 champion new ambassador for “Fußball trifft Kultur”

Initiated by LitCam gGmbH in 2007 and funded by the DFL Foundation since 2012, the integrative education program aims to use enthusiasm for soccer as a learning motivation to give children from disadvantaged neighborhoods access to language and culture.
At 20 locations across Germany, 32 program groups with children in grades 3 to 6 are supported in cooperation with local professional football clubs.
Participants receive 45 minutes of soccer training and 45 minutes of remedial lessons twice a week for at least one school year, usually with a focus on language development.
In addition, cultural events encourage a change of perspective.

Ridle Baku is delighted to be able to actively support this approach in the future as a nationwide ambassador for “Fußball trifft Kultur”:

“I want to help children who might have a harder time. When Karin Plötz from “Fußball trifft Kultur” approached me with the idea of supporting the program as an ambassador, I was immediately enthusiastic.
Combining the social power of soccer with remedial teaching – I think that’s great.
I would like to help as much as I can.”

In his role as ambassador for the program, Ridle Baku will act in particular as a role model for the children.
He will also be involved in shaping the content of the program.
As soon as the current Corona rules allow, he would like to support the program groups in the schools and the big “Fußball trifft Kultur” final tournament on site.
It is particularly important to him to promote soccer as a unifying, integrative element:

“Football has a unifying power. When you go out onto the pitch, it doesn’t matter where you come from. All that matters is the common goal. You have to learn to integrate into a group and deal with defeat. I think you learn a lot of social skills in team sports that also help you a lot off the pitch.”

To the interview with Ridle Baku

Copyright photo: Adidas