Galilee United
This project's parent organization is Misgav Regional Council
It operates in Israel
It uses Football (Soccer)
Entered the Sport for Conflict Resolution Award
More about Galilee United
The Galilee is a rugged, beautiful area in Northern Israel. In the main, it is populated by Jewish & Arab towns, villages and settlements that live peacefully, but separately in their own communities. However, recently the calm has been disturbed. There was the “Intifada” in Northern Israel in the year 2000 in which 13 deaths occurred; the Lebanon war in 2006 and riots in Acco (the only mixed Jewish-Arab town in the region) in October 2008.
The Mayor of Misgav was impressed by Arsenal’s projects to bring people from different social, ethnic & religious backgrounds together through football.8 Jewish and Arab communities were twinned to train together as mixed teams with a view to playing in a cup tournament. An International element was introduced in 2006 and 16 youngsters (2 boys from each community) travelled to the Arsenal International in England.The following year we increased the programme to 12 settlements with 2 teams (24 boys from 12 settlements) travelling to England for the International tournament.As a result of friendships made at the Festival, a Peace Tournament was set up in Spain to which Galilee United were invited in 2008 and again this year, 2009.