2nd National Children Football Festival 2019

The National Children Football Festival brings together more than 500 children from all over Nepal who are living under the shelter of organizations that work for the upliftment and protection of children at risk. This festival is focused on children at risk who have had difficult experiences as a street child, traffic victims, orphans, child labor victims, who will all come together in the 5 days. The young people will be given a chance to speak about their issues, their lives at a national platform in the General Assembly which will be held on 27 May 2019. Shelter Nepal had last year taken a group of 9 children to Street Child World Cup 2018 and the government due to our efforts had recognized them as National Players and had provided them with Birth registration and legal ID too. The young people during the event here will craft their messages through the congress workshops that will be running through the festival week. The United Nations sees sport as an important and powerful tool with the potential to progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, Shelter Ashraya Nepal supports the SDGs and we use sport to bring the children together in a safe space so that they can be seen and their voices can be heard.

This football league during the football festival will have the participation of both girls and boys teams. The Football Association of Malaysia will host the winning team of girls and boys in Malaysia assisted by the Asian Football Confederation for training and a friendly tournament with the National team of Malaysia (Under 18). This will be a huge opportunity and exposure for these children which will help them believe that “They are Somebody”.

We are also organizing this football festival as a launch of our campaign of eradicating child labor from Nepal, “A Child is meant to learn not to earn”. Through this convention, we are calling all stakeholders including the government, policymakers, Industrialists, Corporate, NGOs, and INGO’s so that we can together reduce and eradicate child labor in the long run. There are lots of children who are in the streets, in jail with their mothers who are serving their time, in factories who are victims of labor and who need rehabilitation.

This event will address the following issues:

• Challenging negative perceptions
• Right to Identity
• Right to protection from violence
• Right to Education
• Eradication of child labor

• Empowerment of street-connected children through sports