Champions For Children » Blog Archive » Kicking-off a dream for 640 kids in Suriname

Kicking-off a dream for 640 kids in Suriname

“By supporting education through sport, we can help build a brighter future and teach authentic life skills, community values and integrity.”

Six-hundred-and-forty children, aged 9 to 15 will be given the chance to start realizing a dream by participating in the Para Junior League thanks to four times European Champion, Suriname born, Clarence Seedorf and his foundation Champions for Children.

“My dream has always been to give back to this world and especially to children like each of these 640. By supporting education through sport, we can help build a brighter future and teach authentic life skills, community involvement and values.”

This Para League will be overseen by the organization Future with Values (FUWIVA), a local, Surinamese organization with an eleven-member board. FUWIVA and the Para Junior League are sponsored by Champions for Children, a non-profit foundation born to sustain, help, educate, protect and support the conditions in which children and young people grow up.

Birthplace of Seedorf, the Para district in the country’s north is the mining and forestry centre of Suriname. “I have visited Para regularly since my parents left and still have family there,” Seedorf notes, “but for me, all of Suriname feels like my family.”

Seedorf is a source of inspiration for all Surinamese. A man whose dreams have come true and who has striven to succeed, now wants to help others in reaching theirs. Honored son and a appointed ambassador of his birth country Suriname, Seedorf brought his commitment back home, inspiring the youth of a nation that inspires him.

The Para Junior League will have its inauguration on October 27, 2007. Composed of young players, 15 and under, the league of 8 clubs and 32 teams is the first activity of the organizing committee FUWIVA (Future with Values) in Suriname. “It is just the beginning, the framework, for many projects to come,” says Seedorf. This blueprint model, to be applied in other leagues in other parts of the world, aims to instill values and the integrity of fairplay.

Sponsors such as Lotto and CIC have provided essential materials for the 640 children who will participate in the newly-initiated league. It is not only about play, but about the socialization and responsibility that come with the world’s greatest sport, football.

“I know football,” reflects Seedorf, “so it makes sense to begin with building a league around my experience. But as we expand we will include other sports applying the same model, to reach the same goals we are shooting for with Para Junior League.”

Hand in hand with the campaign “Suriname 2014 – My Other Team”, a national campaign for the Suriname National team to reach the World Cup, are all part of Seedorf’s and the FUWIVA board’s determination to move towards the future creating a support system to nurture a the youth of a country and ensure that the their hopes and dreams become reality.