First Children’s Football Festival in Buenaventura

(Bogotá, September 25, 2008). As part of its Social Responsibility and Community Development activities, the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), together with the National Federation of Family Allowance Funds (FEDECAJAS), is organizing the First CAF Children’s Football Festival, to be held September 26-28 at the Comfamar recreational center in Buenaventura.

One hundred twenty low-income children from the comunas or districts of Buenaventura will take part in the tournament. They are among the 600 plus youngsters who have benefited from the “Sports Training Schools –Football in Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali” project that CAF has supported for the past three years in alliance with FEDECAJAS.

To complement the football matches, FEDECAJAS plans to organize recreational activities for the children, such as sports clinics, one in values and another in technical training.

The mayor of Buenaventura, the manager of Colpuertos, and the president of FEDECAJAS have confirmed their attendance at the event.

Ana Mercedes Botero, the Head of CAF’s External Relations Office, stressed that “practicing sports makes citizen culture viable and contributes to an all-round humanist education that fosters values of solidarity, discipline, responsibility, and respect, ethical-sports criteria that are transferable to the social level.” The CAF Children’s Football Festival is part of the Corporation’s Sports Training Program, the objective of which is to strengthen the all-round education of children and young people from low-income backgrounds by promoting sports activities.