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'You do not always ponder it, but when you have the opportunity to do
something for someone else, you should.' From this vision, the Johan Cruyff
Welfare Foundation came to be in 1996, founded by European soccer player of
the century, Johan Cruijff. After years of involvement with fundraising
activities, Cruijff specifically wanted to use his influence for sports and
play projects for less fortunate young people. Cruijff has special attention
handicapped young people, because exactly to them, sports and play are of
high importance. 'You are as strong as your weakest link', is a famous word
in the world of sports. Cruijff sees many similarities between sport and
society. Therefore, he is of the opinion that it is everyone's task to make
that weakest link as strong as possible.
The Johan Cruyff Welfare Foundation (JCWF) supports projects and
organisations who aim to improve the mental and physical wellbeing through
sporting activities and sports. These may be projects in Holland, but
internationally, the JCWF supports sports and play projects as well, often
combined in that case with education. The foundation shows a special
interest in projects and organisations that represent the interests of the
mentally and physically challenged.
Support of a project by the Johan Cruyff Welfare Foundation is not
altogether unconditional. The foundation demands something back for its
input, i.e. commitment to, and a good co-operation between parties involved
Why sports and games?
Sports and games are children's rights. Beside education, healthcare,
nutrition and safe shelter children have the right to sports and games. This
is laid down in the UN treaty for the Rights of the Child. The importance of
sports and games was denied for a long time in development aid, but in the
mean time notions on this have, luckily, changed. In Holland, too, sports
and games are not always as accessible to everyone. And the Johan Cruyff
wants to do something about this. That is to say, sports and games are
important to the full and healthy development of a child. Children learn, in
sports and game activities, to interact, to win and lose, tactics and
strategy. Beside this, sport gives children confidence as they can achieve
something. But most importantly, playing can be simply fun, too.
Approach
The Johan Cruyff Welfare Foundation does not only want the activities it
supports have to do with sports and games, but also that the execution of
this is done in a sportive way. Many elements from the world of sports, such
as the playing in a team context and a great effort are also important in
the realisation of projects. The Foundation has formulated a number of
criteria that projects must meet before they get support. Co-operation and
the own effort are crucial to this.
Do not waste money
In Johan Cruijff's vision offering help is not wasting money, but to reach
out a helping hand to people, after which they can do something themselves.
Therefore, the first priority lies with projects that do not yet receive
subsidies or sponsor money and who need that extra help badly.
Co-operation with Terre des Hommes
The name and fame of Johan Cruijff is a household name world-wide. Support
by the JCWF can place a project in the limelight more, which makes a wider
audience aware of the need. For the execution of aid, Johan Cruijff found a
partner in child aid organisation Terre des Hommes . Many of the criteria
the foundation applies to projects correspond to the terms of aid of Terre
des Hommes. The two organisations combined their ideas in the construction
of the first large sports and education centre in India.
For example ...
The greatest project is currently the construction of the Johan Cruijff
Education Centre in Bangalore (India), where sports and education will be
integrated for 500 children. The 140 surrounding villages are involved in
this project in a number of ways, so that the aid will eventually reach
280,000 people.
Since a short while, the Foundation is also active in the Netherlands, among
others as a sponsor of the Special Olympics 2000 at Groningen. The
Foundation supports both the European and the Dutch Games for mentally
challenged people. The Johan Cruyff Foundation also support less large-scale
projects, such as the national sporting day for pupils with hearing, talking
and language disabilities. In this, the Foundation works with twelve schools
in the Special Secondary Education.
Johan Cruyff FoundationOlympisch Stadion 51076 DE Amsterdam Telephone: ++31
20 305 77 66Fax: ++ 31 020 305 77 60
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