Dialect 2 News
DIALECT2: Football to fight all discrimination
The Metro Park Stadium in Bagnoli in Naples becomes the beating heart of a unique initiative that combines sport, education and social inclusion. Saša, Carlo, Mattia, Hafiza, Christian, Luigi, Fatima, Praeedip, Claudia, Mario are just some of the over 60 boys and girls, born in Naples and other parts of the world, who meet in Bagnoli to play Football3.
Coming from different social and family backgrounds, the young men and women athletes came together thanks to the network built by us at ActionAid together with local associations, informal groups and the ASD Sant’Anastasia-Peluso Academy football school.
The Dialect2 and Football3 Project
Football3 is not just football: it involves three periods of play and integrates moments of reflection and discussion to manage anger and conflicts, promote fair play and fight discrimination. For over three years we have been spreading this methodology through the European Dialect project, active in Italy, Greece, Hungary and Serbia, where a total of 450 young people between the ages of 10 and 25 are involved.
The tournament is coordinated by four young mediators: Mattia, Bruno, Hafiza and Fatima, who have just turned 18. The mediators guide the participants in choosing the rules of the game and support them in reflecting on their behaviour, assigning fair play points for those who respect the rules and are able to maintain a calm and respectful atmosphere during the game. Mediators play a crucial role in resolving conflicts, becoming trusted figures for children.
Stories of integration and the future
Hafiza and Fatima are two Afghan sisters in their twenties who arrived in Italy in 2021, after the evacuation of Kabul. They have found their home in Naples and are studying medicine and economics respectively and hope to one day return to Afghanistan.
Through the Dialect2 project, with the role of mediators, they found a way to feel like a bridge between adults and adolescents, but also between different languages and cultures, becoming protagonists and an active part of the success of the Football3 method.
“Combining the practice of inclusive sport and the ability to understand digital media and their dynamics to escape clichés and prejudices is the recipe chosen by ActionAid to propose a new interaction between peers, new forms of sociality between minors and young adults who have not been given such opportunities until now and who may have real alternatives to what they find themselves experiencing, even very difficult ones, in their lives” commented Daniela Capalbo, ActionAid manager in Naples, who has been dealing with the project for years
