Everywhere We Go! – Germany, September 2003 (Donation 3)

Association for Special Needs of Children – Dortmund, Germany

Wednesday 10 September by Carey McEvoy

Earlier in the year it was agreed that there would be £1000 donated at all away games.
After successful communications with Eva Meyer in the Mayor’s Dept. in Dortmund, we found a deserving cause – hopefully everyone will agree that the following fitted the bill perfectly.

Our donation was made to an organisation called “Association for Special Needs of Children and Young Persons in the District of Dortmund-Aplerbeck”. This Association runs a mobile 5s court and organises tournaments for children and young people. The objective of this is to support the integration of foreign young people.

DortmundBrian provided the following info…”the district in question is one of those with many recent immigrants, mainly from Turkey, Russia, Kazakstan and other places. Generally these kids don’t have much going for them and have often had a troubled past as refugees etc. They can face educational and language problems etc., as well as racism and discrimination. So I guess anything which uses fitba’ to get kids together is a good thing! ”

Our donation was apparently to fund a year’s worth of this project.
This seems a perfect cause for the Sunshine Appeal to support.
The actual donation took place on the Wednesday afternoon on a stage erected in the centre of Dortmund as a focal point for both sets of fans. It was thought an ideal opportunity to get some Tartan Army kids involved to make the presentation.

The Presentation

The torrential rain meant that the main square didn’t have the predicted 10k in it, but each of the beer tents did have a number of hardy TA packed in under the canopies.
At 2 pm we were missing Danny Divers and his Grandson Joshua, Wee John and his lads, Blair and Ruari, and Spud was no-where to be seen.

Naturally the City Hall guy organising the day was having kittens (I got the impression that Germans like order) but Eva, who had helped organise this, was keeping it cool.
The TA kids were introduced to the local kids, who’d been brought along by the social worker in charge of the project, and stuffed into a room. The silence was deafening so we were all let loose into the town hall itself, behind the stage.

A chaotic next hour saw me charging round the rainy square accosting any pipers i could find, and the kids starting to get a wee bit excited by the occasion.
A few group photos were taken of all the kids and the t-shirts, tops, dummy cheque etc. There were about 10 photographers snapping away, which was quite funny ‘cos the kids looked petrified.

In the meantime I had given the real cheque (£1000) to the President of the Association, who seemed really overwhelmed.

Eventually at 3pm the pipes started and the kids were piped onto the stage to make the presentations and to swap souvenirs with the local kids. (the German FA and Borussia Dortmund had both contributed with badges etc).

I think all the TA kids had a fun experience – it was certainly different, and I will definitely NOT be working with kids ever again 🙂

On a more serious note, I had found out on the Monday night that the Sunshine Appeal donation would really keep this project going for the next year – it had been next on the council’s list to have it’s funding withdrawn (don’t social services always lose out when cash is tight?).

I’ve asked for an update next year, but hopefully the TA have helped just a wee bit towards the integration of under-priviledged kids into the local community.
Thanks to all involved for bringing their sprogs along, JS for buying t-shirts, MNC for arranging the cheques (including a replacement dummy one after I had managed to lose the original outside Teuchters bar at 5am on Sunday morning), and Eva for making all the arrangements.

Details

name  Association for Special Needs of Children

location  Dortmund, Germany

REPORT  Carey McEvoy