Laureus creates ‘Sport for Peace’ fund for Ukraine
Melanie May | 18 March 2022 | News
Global sporting movement Laureus has set up a new fund to support Ukraine – the Laureus Sport for Peace Humanitarian Action Fund.
The fund will support organisations in the country providing food, emergency water, medicine, hygiene kits and providing shelter. Support will be provided to those who have fled the fighting and made their way to neighbouring countries.
Donations from corporate partners, athletes and sports bodies will be channelled to Laureus’s partner humanitarian organisations working on the front line, such as UNICEF, Save the Children and Red Cross / Red Crescent. Public donations can be made via Just Giving.
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A percentage of funds raised through the different channels will also be reserved for recovery, rehabilitation and longer-term support, focusing on the provision of trauma-sensitive sports activities for young people in conflict-affected communities and to help where there are large intakes of refugees.
The Laureus Sport for Peace Fund will be a major beneficiary of the Play Your Part campaign which has been launched this week by Laureus Ambassador Andriy Shevchenko, who captained and later managed the Ukraine national team.
Shevchenko, who has family in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, said:
“Like millions of others, my family and friends are trapped, under the constant threat of bombs and bullets. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for people in Ukraine to get food, water and other fundamental things needed to survive. I want to do whatever I can to help the people of my homeland, which is why I’ve launched ‘Play Your Part’. I urge everyone to do what they can to donate and support the millions of innocent people caught up in this conflict.”
Laureus Academy Chairman Sean Fitzpatrick added:
“The Fund will enable us to galvanise the power of sport to provide life-saving support via partnerships with leading humanitarian relief agencies. It will also enable us long term to help people and communities to recover. One of the biggest focuses will be on helping refugees. Fortunately, many of the 250 sports-based programmes we currently support around the world work in this area to facilitate integration of refugees into new communities. We are clearly going to need a lot more of that to tackle the crisis we are facing today.”
Allocation of money from the fund will follow vetting and approval procedures in line with the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and agreed with the Foundation’s Trustees.
More on Laureus: Last year, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation partnered with Foot Locker on a multi-country initiative aimed at supporting underserved communities and addressing health, wealth, and opportunity gaps.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.