Football Australia to Host a Unity Football Festival for Refugee Week
June 18, 2021
With the world set to recognise World Refugee Day this Sunday, Football Australia and partners are finalising preparations for a ‘Unity Football Festival’ that is taking place next week as part of Australia’s Refugee Week 2021 events.
The festival will be held 26 June at Wanderers Football Park in the Western Suburbs of Sydney to celebrate the power of football for inclusion and in promoting harmony and togetherness in Australia’s communities. As of 2018, there were nearly 57,000 refugees living in the country.
The theme for Refugee Week 2021 is ‘Unity’ and the festival is an opportunity for Football Australia to celebrate how the game unites people and cultures from all around the world.
While intended to offer refugees in Australia an opportunity to experience what football has to offer, it is open to all cultures and backgrounds. Events will showcase football while also highlighting aspects of the refugee experience and helping the broader community to understand what it is like to be a refugee.
The Unity Football Festival will feature a mix of football from MiniRoos, a youth football club, to senior and Walking Football programs, accommodating all age groups. It will also celebrate the mix of cultures from different foods to experience, cultural dances and performances.
Football Australia CEO James Johnson said the event is a great opportunity for newly arrived and already established refugees to get involved in the game of football.
“Football is the most diverse sport in the Australian sporting landscape – we are a melting pot of 2 million participants represented by over 180 countries from around the world. Many of these communities are from multicultural and CALD backgrounds and have a strong cultural connection to football and use the game as a mechanism to integrate into society,” he said.
UNHCR will also be elevating awareness during the festival by showcasing photos from Australia as part of its partnership with Goal Click Refugees. The campaign reveals how sport promotes integration as seen through the eyes of displaced people. One in the series features Jonasi Eangano Singehebhuye, originally from Burundi and now living in Melbourne. He took snaps for the project as part of his work with Football Victoria at the Victoria African Cup of Nations 2021 in early January.
“I intended to showcase the unity and progress brought by football at a grassroots and community level within Victoria. They also intended to show the contribution and positive engagement of the African diaspora,” said Singehebhuye.