By Tom Lloyd, Istanbul, Turkey, July 25, 2018: Turkey 2024 has pledged that 25 per cent of its volunteer programme refugee community for UEFA EURO 2024 will be comprised of settled refugees, aligning with its vision to deliver a tournament that promotes inclusion, diversity and accessibility for all.
The integration of the refugee community into its plans for UEFA’s flagship event is a strong demonstration of Turkey 2024’s commitment to act as a bridge between people of different religions, cultures and nations and its desire to create a new frontier for UEFA that extends beyond the confederation’s traditional borders.
Under plans included in its bid dossier, presented to UEFA in April this year, Turkey 2024 confirmed that volunteers will be selected from a wide cross-section of Turkish society, including one quarter refugees, which will help to bring diversity to the organisation and increase engagement among people from a variety of backgrounds.
Turkey 2024 will establish training centres in nine host cities, where volunteers will be provided with fundamental skills such as organisational capability and foreign language competence to ensure the tournament’s smooth delivery.
Significantly, the skills learned as part of the training can also be adopted by volunteers across a variety of jobs and careers, opening up opportunities for them beyond the tournament.
Turkey 2024’s bid is focussed on helping UEFA reach every corner of the world, to be a platform to support UEFA in developing its impact and reach with the widest possible audience – both in Europe and beyond.
By integrating refugees into the heart of its volunteer programme the bid is taking a positive step towards this ambition, while showcasing the enormous capacity of football to unite communities and act as a tool to enhance development and social inclusion, creating a fairer, more harmonious society.
volunteer programme refugee community/volunteer programme refugee community
Servet Yardımcı, Vice-President of the TFF and UEFA Executive Committee Member, said:
“There are few things that can touch the heart of our cities or reach out to the far corners of our country and unite us the way football does/volunteer programme refugee community.
We understand this responsibility and football’s vast potential for positive social impact.
Football embraces and connects not only our own people, but will support the ongoing integration of millions of refugees into our country.
“As both the bridge between Europe and Asia and as a gateway to Africa and the Middle East, Turkey has the ability to bring the UEFA EURO 2024 to even more people, and create new fans way beyond Europe.
By ensuring the refugee community is integrated into the tournament we can share together our vision for an open, outward-looking tournament that is based on the values of inclusivity and respect.”
The UEFA Executive Committee is scheduled to appoint the Host Association for UEFA EURO 2024 in September.
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