The Team
This project's parent organization is Search for Common Ground
It operates in Pan-Africa and Pan-Asia
It uses Football (Soccer)
Entered the Best New Project
More about The Team
The Team draws on the immense interest and pride in each country‘s football teams. Storylines feature characters who struggle to overcome significant differences between one another in order to achieve shared goals. Only through cooperative behavior will the players score goals. There is an emphasis on sport as a community unifier, regardless of the economic, cultural, and linguistic mix that are a source of social tensions.
Each episode of the series highlights different issues confronting the players by using tools of popular culture to communicate messages of conflict resolution and tolerance, e.g., music, the Internet, television, and cell phones. Depending on the local context and values, the stories are entertaining and reflect characters with whom the audience can identify. Specifically, the programme aims to encourage ethnic, class and regional understanding, model problem-solving and peace-making skills, train socially and gender inclusive youth groups to develop professional skills, transfer knowledge to local writers and producers. On a societal level, the aim of the drama is to enable audience members to imagine a better future, for themselves and for their country. A key theme of this original plot will be to understand differences, while stressing commonalities.