My

Story

Nikita

“To be honest, I am not a football player. Really, I am actually quite far away from football. But I do realize that football is a strong tool to teach children really important things. That is why I took part in this programme. I wanted to learn about football methodology and the different techniques. The training has given me tools and knowledge on how to make children smile, teach them to solve problems, cooperate, work as a team, to develop leadership qualities and many, many other things. Things that they will need in their general life. It is not an easy time to be a child growing up in Eastern Ukraine.

I have had the chance to travel, study and work abroad. But Ukraine is my country and I want to live here. I have understood that the greatest motivation for me is to make children smile. That is why I started to work as a field officer for Terre des Hommes. As part of our work in Ukraine, we run a programme on psycho-social support for children in Eastern Ukraine. Everything I learned at this education, I will share with my colleagues so that we can use it in our “Youth Activation Sessions” that we run in schools. We have already developed new games for our psycho-social support programme, especially activities based on the football fun games that we were taught. Using football to help children relieve stress is a completely new approach for us. When they play, they smile, they have energy, they forget what is going on around them. That is why it is so important to work and play with children, especially in Eastern Ukraine.”