Since 2013, a team of FSCI employees and volunteers has been running the “Football Summer” initiative at the correctional facility in Boychinovtsi, and later in Vratsa, where the facility was relocated. As part of the initiative, we use sport as the main means of reaching out to at-risk youth. Through football, personal contact and group sessions, our team tries to show young people in prison that there are alternatives to a life of crime.
Through football, personal contact and group sessions, our team tries to show young people deprived of their liberty that there are alternatives to a life of crime. Young offenders (aged 15-21) have limited access to education, healthcare and employment for various reasons. Many of them turn to criminal practices, most of them being attracted to it at an early age. Many of them turn to criminal practices, with most of them being drawn into crime at an early age. This leads to an endless cycle of crime and imprisonment, which for too many young people continues throughout their lives.
The initiative has two main goals: on the one hand, to enable the young people from the “House Of Opportunity” program to get to know each other and work on developing basic skills for coping with independent life, and on the other hand, to give them the opportunity to see the correctional institution from the inside as a means of preventing them from ending up in places of imprisonment. Another goal of the football camp is to help the young people from House Of Opportunity appreciate the alternatives available to them for acceptable work, dignified labor, and life.
On the other hand, the project aims to show prisoners that they are not alone, despite the wrong choices they have made, and that there is someone they can turn to if they want to change after leaving the institution.
These two groups of young people have common characteristics—they are severely marginalized, often forgotten and abandoned by a system that lacks the quality tools and resources to deal with the problems they face.
In addition to football matches led by volunteers and foundation staff, the programme also includes discussions on various topics.
Since 2018, Sofia Municipality has been providing funding to partially cover the costs of the “Football Summer” summer camp as part of the Program for the Development of Physical Education and Sports in Sofia Municipality.
