Kicking Into Life
September 24, 2019. CAC staff member, Jamie Tomkinson, led our second year of Purposeful Play training with local partner, Palestine Sports for Life. He was also joined by Community Impact Coach, Marian Dubois, of the Fútbol Más site in Paris, France.
The CAC team have been in Palestine this last week – working in partnership with Palestine Sports for Life and Fútbol Más France, we delivered a world class programme for over 20 coaches, community leaders, government ministers and teachers from the United Nations. Taking into account the issues that affect the citizens of the West Bank, we decided to use our #PurposefulPlay curriculum to deliver a workshop that addressed UNSDG #3 ‘Health and Wellness’ and UNSDG #5 ‘Gender Equality’.
Specifically, we wanted to focus on Mental Health. Many residents of Palestine have difficulty with anxiety, conflict resolution and depression due to many factors. We played some games from our upcoming and new Mental Health Curriculum, where our discussions focused on 1) how our actions and words can affect those around us and 2) what we can do as friends, family and leaders to support not only children, but also other members of our community who are suffering in silence. The simple act of listening, for example, was mentioned many times and the importance of being approachable and simply being present, can make a massive difference.
A highlight for me was going to visit one of the participant’s local Kick-Boxing class for girls and young women. We were only supposed to be there for 45 minutes, but I found myself still there 2 and a half hours later laughing and learning – I got my own taste of #EducationOutsideTheClassroom, as these brilliant young women and girls taught me what life was like for them, how they’ve built up a commendable resilience, and with their Kick-Boxing skills, if they wanted to beat me up they’d have no problem!
CAC Accredits 2 More Organizations
September 10, 2019. Coaches Across Continents is proud to announce two more organizations who have been accredited in Purposeful Play. GOALS Haiti and Slum Soccer (India) have demonstrated organizational growth and capacity-building through partnership with CAC to create legacies of social change based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through Purposeful Play. They are being recognized as model organizations within CAC’s global partnership network; a network that covers 60 countries, impacting over 16 million children. They join ACER (Brasil), GOALS Armenia, and training4changeS (South Africa) as the only CAC Accredited organizations globally.
80% of CAC’s accredited organizations are shortlisted for the 2019 Beyond Sport Awards
In January, 2019 Coaches Across Continents launched the world’s first-ever Organizational Accreditation Program in Purposeful Play and Education Outside the Classroom. For accreditation, these groups engaged with their CAC Process Consultants to develop their organizations through our 28 Strategic Resources that include: Creating a Theory of Change Model, Designing a Women’s Rights Policy, Monitoring & Evaluation Process Consultancy, Child and Community-Based Protection Training, and more. Becoming an accredited organization improves that organizations ability to create sustainable change based on the UNSDGs, find and secure funding and award opportunities, enhance brand reputation, and more. Accredited partners will receive additional support from Coaches Across Continents including substantial joint-funding opportunities, educational travel and leadership development, global recognition, and high-level networking.
Slum Soccer has been a CAC-partner since 2011 where they have grown from impacting 500 disadvantaged youth in Nagpur to directly impacting 90,000 youth nationwide. Some of their most recent initiatives involve leading the Education and Sport sector by designing curriculums and programs to teach children about various aspects of Menstrual Health, along with LGBTQI related topics supported by Streetfootballworld’s Common Goal initiative. Slum Soccer was named the first-ever FIFA For Diversity Award winner in 2016 and are shortlisted this year for a Beyond Sport award in UNSDG#3: Good Health and Well-Being for their Shakti Girls initiative.
GOALS Haiti advances youth leadership through soccer and education to create stronger, healthier communities in rural Haiti. They are shortlisted for this year’s Beyond Sport Awards UNSDG#3: Good Health and Well-Being for their Aktive Jèn Yo program that utilizes soccer in Haiti to engage youth and their families in programs that emphasize education, health and the environment to improve their quality of life on a daily basis, and are a prior winner at Beyond Sport (2016).
Congratulations!
To learn more about Coaches Across Continents Accreditation Program: Click Here
To partner with Coaches Across Continents or support an organizations’ accreditation,
CAC Publishes “Community Empowerment to Ensure Human Rights Guiding Principles”
June 20, 2019. On World Refugee Day, Coaches Across Continents is releasing our Community Empowerment to Ensure Human Rights Guiding Principles. CAC’s decade of experience in using Purposeful Play to empower communities to recognize, protect, and ensure all human rights is now bolstered by these guiding principles which will help our partnerships in more than 60 countries.
CAC Community Empowerment to Ensure Human Rights- Guiding Principles
“Community Empowerment is the idea that a community best understands the individuals within that community, and that the best people to take care of one another are each other.” – Chief Executive Brian Suskiewicz
CAC uses Purposeful Play and Education Outside the Classroom in 60+ countries to Empower Communities to Recognize and Ensure Human Rights.
Developed from our decade of experience in communities around the world, as well as strategic partnerships with the UNHCR and UNICEF, these Guiding Principles for Community Empowerment to Ensure Human Rights provide the opportunity for all organizations to learn best practices in both emergency and non-emergency situations.
To help explain the importance of these guidelines, Chief Executive Brian Suskiewicz presented on our Virtual Learning podcast this month. Click here to listen.
For more information on these guidelines, please contact us at
World Refugee Day is June 20th. A special thanks to these CAC partners who work with refugees and internally displaced persons every day:
- Asian Football Confederation / BFF / UNHCR benefitting Rohingya Refugees, Bangladesh
- ANERA, Lebanon
- Fútbol Más, France
- Fútbol Más, México
- Girl Determined, Myanmar
- Kabubu, France
- Kicken Ohne Grenzen, Austria
- Palestine Sports for Life, Palestine
- Reclaim Childhood, Jordan
- Soccer Without Borders, Uganda and United States
BREAKING: CAC Wins Beyond Sport ‘Global Impact of the Year’ Award
September 13, 2018. Breaking News: Coaches Across Continents, the Global Leader in Creating Legacies, was awarded the Global Impact of the Year Award from Beyond Sport for the WhatsYourLegacy? campaign. CAC is the only three-time winner of the Beyond Sport Awards. Previously CAC was recognized as winners in the Best New Project (2009) and Corporate of the Year (2014).
“I’m humbled and honored for CAC to be recognized with the Global Impact of the Year award from Beyond Sport. I want to thank our current and past staff, donors, boards, global citizens, partners, and local leaders for their commitment to using sport to create social change globally.”
~Nick Gates, Founder and Global Strategist
Now celebrating our tenth anniversary with #CAC10, Coaches Across Continents Creates Legacies based on the UN SDGs by partnering with corporations, foundations, governments, and community-based organizations to create Education Outside the Classroom programming. Our work in 56 countries impacts 16 million children and addresses 10 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
We were joined by 11 different implementing partners at the awards. Over 25% of the Beyond Sport shortlisted finalists were CAC partners, demonstrating the clear impact that CAC has in the world of Sport for Development and peace on 6 continents, as well as the wide-range of social issues we address impacting 10 of the UN SDGs.
The Global Impact of the Year Award was presented in the One World Observatory of One World Trade Center in New York City. Accepting the award was CAC Founder Nick Gates, Sustainability Strategist Adam Burgess, and ASK for Choice Strategist Nora Dooley.
This week has been an eventful one for Coaches Across Continents. CEO Suskiewicz is in Kuala Lumpur speaking at the Asian Football Confederation’s Social Responsibility Conference and Dream Asia Awards in CAC’s role as their Official Social Responsibility Partner.
For partnership with Coaches Across Continents please contact: or visit: www.coachesacrosscontinents.org