Football Unifies is a social responsibility project that I initiated to support Syrian refugee children of ages 9-12 in their adaptation to the community with the help of the unifying spirit of football and the disciplinary power of the sports.

Indeed, I have taken part in various social responsibility projects since the beginning of my secondary education. In Edirnekapı and Zeytinburnu kindergarten of the Children of Our Future Foundation, I participated in book clubs and projects related to cinema and football that were organized for children of ages 7 to 12.  In the 37th and 38th Vodafone İstanbul Marathons, my friends from Koç High School and I raised funds for the projects by running for the Community Volunteers Foundation and for UNICEF, respectively.

After starting high school in 2015, the news about the aftermath of the war in Syria, the migration of the refugees to Turkey and the people who lost their lives in the Aegean Sea raised my awareness on these issues. In this period, with some of my friends and our parents, we started visiting refugee children in Başakşehir, Güvercintepe, Yarımburgaz and Esenyurt, which are the districts that have the highest refugee population in İstanbul. During these visits, we provided food, cleaning supplies and toys for refugee children and their families.  Furthermore, I started looking for other opportunities to make a difference in these children's lives - something that would have a more profound impact.

As a result, in the summer of 2016, I attended the Volunteer Orientation Training at Maya Foundation that provides psychosocial support via arts, music and dance movement therapy for Syrian children under the Project Lift. At the Taşkışla Campus of Istanbul Technical University, I further attended a Trauma Training program which focused on Syrian children.

Then, I participated in the "Football Beyond Borders" project in Thailand that brings together young volunteers from around the world. In Thailand, while working in paddy fields and in the construction of a school building during daytime, in the evenings we played football with local Thai children and refugee children from Myanmar. Although we all spoke different languages, I realized that football created a common language among us and removed the boundaries in our communication. This interaction, the positive mood and the ambiance that was created by football became my main inspiration for future projects.

When I returned to Turkey, I felt that football, which is my passion, could provide a profound motivational effect on Syrian refugee children, helping them overcome the negative conditions they are in and get rid of the pessimism that surrounds them. To this end, I initiated the "Football Unifies" project in 2016 with the contributions of Ece Çiftçi ("SosyalBen" Foundation).

In this project, our goal is to help children, who lost the joy of life, look forward to the future with hope. We try to achieve this goal by encouraging these children to be engaged in sports, supporting their personal development, preventing the cultivation of bad habits through channeling their energy into sports and thereby accelerating their adaptation to the community via teamwork. 

What do we do specifically to achieve this goal? Within the scope of this project, on a Saturday between 13:30 and 15:30 each month, we meet with Syrian children of ages 9 to 12 from Fatih and Başakşehir districts and bring them to the Baltalimanı astroturf football field via an arranged shuttle bus.  Following some basic condition training, running, and trainings on tactics, shooting and passing, we proceed for the match. You may find some images, videos and news about our project on twitter.com/footballunifies and instagram.com/footballunifies. The first period of the project started in September 2016 ended on April 22, 2017, one day before the Children's Day that has been celebrated traditionally since 1923. After the final match in Baltalimanı Football Field, our children received their medals, certificates, football kits and their professional football shoes provided by our sponsors during a beautiful ceremony which also hosted their parents. I believe that this experience will instill hope in the children and arouse a feeling of "I can do it!".

Our project will proceed with its second period which will start in September 2017, expanding its mentorship crew with the incoming junior high school student volunteers. After the project was announced in the social media, Instagram, Twitter, the popular newspaper Hürriyet http://mobil.hurriyet.com.tr/.football-unifies-futbolun-birlestirici-gucu-40414807 and then the Şalom Newspaper http://www.salom.com.tr/haber-102995-multeci, several of my friends volunteered as mentors for future projects. Thus, I am confident that we took the necessary steps to sustain the Football Unifies Project even after I graduate from high school.

Volunteering is in essence a cultural feature. Like we often see in western culture, it is possible for us to contribute to the society by reading books to the elderly in nurseries or by serving food in public soup kitchens. In both cases, you contribute just by sparing your time, without any financial contribution. When you see it this way, when you reach such an awareness level, it is not too hard to touch others' lives, to make a difference and to add value to our world.

Throughout my education, I have developed certain values and gained some opportunities. In fact, like most of us. I have always preferred to use these gains towards sharing through volunteering. Being able to give back to my community and to share is a great feeling. Moreover, contrary to the widespread view, you do not need to be rich to volunteer. If that were the case, a country like Myanmar, which is a less developed country, would not be rated in the top three of the World Giving Index along with U.S.A and New Zealand.

If I have been able to raise awareness in others, especially my peers, through this project, and can give way to similar sensitivities, it would be a great pleasure.