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The safety and protection of youngsters forms a crucial part of CAF’s new schools football competition, the CAF African Schools Football Championship which is set to take place in Durban between April 5-8.
Ahead of the much-anticipated tournament, CAF is hosting a two-day safeguarding workshop with educators from different schools which kicked off on Monday, 05 April and is set to conclude this afternoon ahead of the official draw of the tournament.
The CAF Safeguarding programme is a new initiative that was initially introduced by FIFA in 2020, with the aim of providing a safe and secure environment for children to freely express their talent in an environment that is free of any form of harassment or abuse.
Speaking at the conclusion of the opening day of the workshop, CAF’s Safeguarding Manager, Omar Amr said it was critical for CAF to play a leading role and spearhead such an initiative as the official governing body of football on the continent.
“As the governing body of football in Africa, we as CAF need to ensure that football is a safe and secure environment for children. Working closely with Children’s Rights organisations, schools and educators, we need to have policies, procedures and codes of conducts to ensure that football is a safe environment for children. This must not only happen at official CAF competitions, but also at their local schools on a daily basis,” said Amr.
The full day workshop also saw educators sharing their experiences and challenges of creating safe playing environments, which included the lack of facilities, support and safe transport measures for youngsters to and from matches and training.
“It was quite an engaging session which highlighted a number of challenges that educators and coaches face at ground level. With that said, we are quite happy with the gradual steps that we are making, and we believe that we are headed in the right direction in putting safeguarding measures in place for a safe and secure environment for children”, concluded Amr.
The workshop officially concludes today at the Moses Mabhida Stadium with CAF set to provide more suggestions and solutions to ensuring that Safeguarding forms a crucial component in the ongoing development of football across the continent.
