Football against racism

For the second time in a few months the Chernivtsi Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews was organising a project in cooperation with the Congress of national Minorities of Ukraine. In November 2012 we realized the project “Overcoming stereotypes together” and in April – May 2013 it was the project «Football against racism», initiated by the Congress and supported by the Embassy of the Swiss Confederation in Ukraine.
The concept: Two ethnically and religously mixed teams are playing together in a match that does not focus on who is going to win, but on playing together in a friendly atmosphere of understanding.
Frankly speaking, the concept, outlined above, is a brief explanation of the project as until the players met each other on the field on May 20th it had been a long and interesting way. The players themselves and many other young motivated people were gathering in our museum for several times to get to know each other, to discuss issues concerning racism and discrimination, to draw slogans against racism that should be used for the match and to develop music and dance performances for the halftime-breaks. The amazing results were shown at the day of the match and now they are also shown in our photo album.
Impressions of „Football against racism“:

Click on the photo to enlarge.


Foto 1 – The project started with the seminar „racism in football/ racism in the society“ for interested students from Chernivtsi universities..
Foto 2 - The project’s volunteers gathered for the first time to watch and discuss the movie „Invictus“.
Foto 3 - „Invictus“ is dealing with the question how sports and racism can be connected to each other, which problems on the one hand, but which chances on the other hand this offers.
Foto 4 - With tea and cookies the volunteers were developing slogans against racism.
Foto 5 - Volunteers of the project „Football against racism“.





Foto 6, 7 – Football players gathered in the museum to form teams by lot.
Foto 8 - During a press conference in museum’s rooms representatives of the project were answering questions of journalists.
Foto 9 - Anna Yamchuk, coordinator of the project in Chernivtsi; Oleg Chornyi, vice-principal of the children’s football school; Mykola Kushnir, museum’s director; Myroslav Hrinberh, coordinator of the project, representative of the Congress of national minorities of Ukraine; Nina Zorii, pro-rector on Scientific-Pedagogical and Educational Work of the Bukovinian State Medical University; Roman Petryshyn, senior vice-rector of the Yurii Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University.




Foto 10 – The day of the match: The weather we didn’t hope for…
Foto 11 - Our volunteers with their slogan-posters.
Foto 12, 13 - Football players.


Foto 14 – Shaking hands for starting a friendly match.
Foto 15, 16, 17 - Moments of the match





Foto 18 – Spectators of the match.
Foto 19 - In the halftime break: music performances of the students Diana Kyshkan and Flore Akama.
Foto 20 - Flore Akame sings a very popular Ukrainian song “Chervona Ruta”.
Foto 21 - Svitlana Prykazka and Iryna Krushnitska are expecting for their performances to be announced.



Foto 22 – The finale of the match had to be displaced into the hall because of the storm, which started a few minutes after we entered the hall. However, some players said, they were so much into game they didn’t even notice what was happening outside.
Foto 23 - Instead of a football cup the winning team received a big football cake, given as a gift by the confectionery „Clipsydra“ (L. Kleyman) which they were sharing with the other players and volunteers.
Foto 24 - All participants of the project “Football against racism”.





P.S. A few days after the project had been finished, some players told us they had decided to organize a similar match with the same players in the future themselves. Indeed, football unites!