Coaches Across Continents is delighted to be working with Disney, love.futbol and Think Beyond on a new initiative promoting healthy living within low socio-economic communities in Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Love.futbol are refurbishing safe spaces for play in Boulogne, Buenos Aires and Valle de Chalco outside Mexico City. These safe spaces will be managed by local organizations Revolucion Pelota and Natlik respectively.
CAC has designed local play-based programming with Revolucion Pelota and Natlik aligned with Disney’s healthy living principles. These programs, utilizing the new safe spaces, will address topics related to UNSDG3: Good Health & Wellbeing including nutrition, hydration, physical activity, and promotion of a positive personal lifestyle over the course of 9-12 months. Our role includes a Purposeful Play curriculum, designing monitoring and evaluation systems and online training of local leaders.
This exciting initiative follows on the heels of our partnership with ESPN, whose parent company is Disney, in Sydney and Puerto Rico over the past 2 years. We are pleased to bring this productive partnership to new communities, adapted for local realities and challenges.
July 30th Update. 96% of Coaches Across Continents (CAC) partners reported the mental well-being of youth they impact has been moderately or severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. CAC has adapted a specialized play-based educational resource from our existing Purposeful Play curriculum library which addresses issues such as anxiety, self-esteem, balancing emotions, stress, and loneliness.
The games are adaptable to varying numbers of participants and national restrictions (distancing, hygiene, one-person activity). As a result it can be used in contexts where isolation, social distancing and public hygiene measures are necessary. This resource is coming soon!
CAC is going to be #PartOfTheSolution as we fight this global COVID-19 pandemic. Education on COVID-19 is urgently needed by children globally. Many of the communities in which we work do not have access to running water and live in heavily congested communities making social distancing far more challenging. Donate to CAC’s work to support our play-based response to this crisis.
As the global leader in Purposeful Play, CAC have released a new Purposeful Play curriculum packet to educate communities, coaches, and children on best practices associated with the coronavirus and other communicable diseases. The COVID-19 resource has been distributed to all of our 75 impact partners in 45 countries addressing UNSDG3: Good Health and Well-being and UNSDG4: Quality Education.
The packet is divided into 2 general sections:
1. Resources that include
Talking with Youth about Scary Diseases
Myths & Facts
Coaching Guidelines
Research & Science Facts
2. Activities specially designed to focus on
Best practices to avoid contracting the virus (hand washing, social distancing, and more)
Best practices to avoid spreading the virus if you become infected (testing, isolation)
Unlike most CAC Purposeful Play curriculum all activities in this packet are designed to be played with as little physical contact as possible. For more information about our COVID-19 Curriculum contact us at
More on CAC’s COVID-19 Response
CAC Founder Nick Gates presented our COVID-19 curriculum on Beyond Sport’s inaugural community chat on April 9th. Here is a link to the full recording of that chat.
We are pleased to be a supporting signatory on Soccer Without Borders and America SCORES’ call to address youth isolation during the COVID-19 crisis.
We are a supporter of the European Football for Development Network’s #SupporterofEachOther initiative.
2019 marks the 11th year that Coaches Across Continents has worked towards honoring World AIDS Day. On December 1st, CAC partners around the globe made use of our unique AIDS Awareness Day curriculum packet to share knowledge and dive into some of the overwhelming nuance associated with this disease.
HIV remains one of the world’s most serious public health problems with ~38 million people currently infected. Despite dramatic steps forward with prevention and treatment technologies, a disproportionate number of people and communities in low and middle income countries continue to struggle with this disease and its ramifications.
More than 5,700 individuals and organizations in 114 countries were provided our World AIDS Day resource packet. With this packet, communities are encouraged to question the various stigmas, myths, facts and research behind the latest in HIV awareness.