Our Mission

The Kick Project is a sports-for-development NGO originally from Australia, founded by James Rose (australian journalist, author, ethical investment pioneer, media advisor for international social justice causes and soccer/football enthusiast).

​

In 2017 there was a decision made to establish a registered non-profit to Europe (Finland) to continue the legacy of The Kick Project, hoping to give us new possibilities for further development around our organisation and to further expand our activities. Nowadays we are registered in Finland only but still working worldwide.

 

We have big ambitions to change lives through sport, helping young people and ​communities build resilience, prosperity and peace.

​

We use sports programs to alleviate the suffering, disadvantage and/or stresses of children and youth in critical situations worldwide.

 

Children – and women – are most often the frontline of modern war, poverty impact, disaster and national or community crisis.

​

We believe that the most sustainable and most resilient communities are built from the child up.

As such, working with a community’s younger members helps empower communities to steer clear of violence, prejudice and poverty.

Football is our go-to sport, but we are not bound by that. Other sports can be just as effective, particularly in relation to getting girls involved. 

​

Our basic template is to identify a community in need we feel we can work with. 

We then meet with community representatives and design a program that suits their needs and fits our mission.

Sports’ programs aid personal development, but need healthy leadership and positive role models to do it right.

Commonly, we will support a community team with uniforms and training equipment and will help facilitate the means for them to operate as a club. 

We may set up a whole league to allow different communities to come together under the banner of sport or we may establish a sports facility that can be used as a communal hub to benefit the chosen community in a wider context.

We may also devise a sporting event that draws communities together, giving them an opportunity to mix and engage. 

All our programs are designed to add to the innate strengths of young people to overcome, to interact, and to grow.
​
Changing young lives for the better is one thing The Kick Project is guaranteed to do, through providing access to sports activities that many of us takes for granted.

​

We do not promote any political or religious agendas nor can our programs be used for such purposes.

​

We are non-violent and always seek to ensure we are not party to any violent, war-like, or overtly discriminatory agendas.

​

Our goal is to provide services that:

​

• Provide children and youth with sport-based activities and resources that allow them to recapture parts of their childhood that have been stripped away during war, poverty, economic crisis, enforced asylum, natural disaster or other such calamity, either momentary or on-going;

​

• Are designed to feed into the broader community in positive ways, which are reflective of community needs;

​

• Reduce violence, stress, disadvantage, suffering, ignorance, social exclusion and fear in targeted communities;

​

• Increase understanding, empowerment, security, social inclusion, awareness and a sense of fun and play in targeted communities;

 

• Inspire others as to the value of the above goals.

​

All our programs must:

​​

• Be Smart, Safe and Sustainable

• Have local recipient, grass-roots buy-in;

• Generate reportable data;

• Have kick-on benefits, or further momentum beyond that actual program;

• Have a formalised feedback mechanism;

• Have a media and public outreach strategy;

• Work to an approved and sustainable budget;

• Identify and target deliverable results.

​