ArsenalVision's fundraiser for The Arsenal Foundation
ArsenalVision Podcast is raising money for The Arsenal Foundation
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We love you for your incredible generosity helping to protect the child-refugees of Za'atari Camp! ❤️
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Everyone who donates before the end of April will not only be helping support this cause, but you will be entered to win a place in a VIP box at the Emirates for Arsenal's home game against Bournemouth. This includes food and drink, hanging out with the podcasters, and getting to be part of the Live From N5 program recorded at the stadium!
If you’d prefer to bid on tickets on the auction site with all proceeds going to this fundraiser, you can do that here! (Including a club-level ticket for the Madrid tie!)
Why We Are Supporting This Cause:
Being an Arsenal supporter has to be about more than wins and losses and trophies and transfers. It has to be about the deeper connection we make to one another and to the club through our acts of dedication. For us, this project is the true expression of what it means to support the club.
A few years ago Elliot had the incredible privilege of visiting Za’atari refugee camp on the Syrian border to see the work being done by The Arsenal Foundation to help child refugees from the war in Syria. The camp of 80,000 refugees includes 40,000 children. Life in the camp can be difficult, and many of the children find themselves facing challenges such as early child marriages or child labor or victims of gender-based violence. The Arsenal Foundation, in partnership with Save The Children, is doing important work to offer hope and to protect these vulnerable children.
Arsenal’s Coaching for Life program uses football to provide boys and girls with a safe space to be young and carefree. The Arsenal pitches are a green space in a bleak landscape, where children develop the friendships and life skills necessary to stay in school, stand up to the negative influences in their environment, and build themselves into strong young adults with the potential for a brighter future. (50% of the program participants are now young girls which is an incredible achievement.)
To see the Arsenal badge stand as a symbol of hope and kindness is incredibly moving. In Za’atari refugee camp, you discover what it really means to love Arsenal Football Club.
The Arsenal Foundation is supported entirely by donations from the supporter community and keeping the Coaching for Life program running isn't a guarantee. We committed to raising money for the program including giving money of our own. And once we made that commitment to the children in Za’atari camp, there was no chance we would let them down.
Although the situation in Syria is volatile at present, the young people of Za’atari camp have, for the first time ever, the possibility of someday returning home. To be citizens again, rather than refugees. To build a life. To live out the dreams they may have first conjured during their days in the Coaching For Life program. Raising money now, and ensuring the program can continue, is more important than ever. If we can keep these young people in the program, developing the tools they need to build a life outside the camp, we can fulfill a promise that was made to them from the first days of Coaching for Life.
This is the most important thing we do together as a community. This is what it means to have pride in the badge. What Arsenal is doing for the Syrian child-refugees in Za'atari camp is unique, it is special, and it is work that the club needs us to help carry on. We made a promise to these children and we absolutely will not let them down.
Your contribution to this cause connects us to these children. It connects us to the club. It brings us together as a family, united in the love of our football club, and proving that our bond can be a force for positive change in the world. This is the best of what we can be, and the words "thank you" don't go far enough to express the gratitude we feel, and the club feels, that you are supporting this vital project.