Every Child Deserves a Basketball!

With 565 unaccompanied/separated children, who were asylum seekers in Cyprus at the end of 2019, and with numbers constantly rising over the last five years the need to secure their wellbeing, their acceptance and integration within new communities is essential, regardless of which country ends up being their final destination.

The children are currently residing in Cyprus at several shelters located island-wide and despite the government providing aid and organizing special educational programmes for them, one can only imagine the conditions they live in and the limitations imposed on their social lives at that wulnerable age. Often children feel that there is little point in those schooling programmes as they have pending applications to transfer to other EU countries or they are incapable to follow lessons since they were deprived of basic education in their country of origin.

We feel that it is our responsibility to assist them in the best way we can. Our goal is to try to help them salvage their childhood by introducing them to local community through something they are familiar with and what ideally should remind them of that care-free envoironment they need at this fragile stage of their lives; sports.

Every Child Deserves a Basketball is organized by Moufflons. We are a non-profit organization, officially registered in 2015 with the Ministry of Interior in Cyprus. Informal education through sports and in particular basketball is one of our main functions. The fundraiser was set up in order to help us gather funds to establish and incorporate our pilot program of acceptance and integration of the unaccompanied/separated children who are currently residing in Cyprus by and with local community. We plan to execute our pilot program over several stages, from providing them with basic clothing/gear and basketballs to organizing events for them in forms of games and competitions which will obviously also involve local children. All the participants will be informally educated on anti-racism and differences of cultures. The implementation of the program will commence as soon as the covid-19 pandemic government imposed restrictions allow so and all protocols in place will be strictly respected. The updates will posted regulary both here and throughout our social media as well as the official web site as we want to maintain transparency at all levels.

Just take a moment to think about it. In the world we live in, this can happen to any of us. Every two seconds, somewhere on the planet, someone is forced to flee for safety.

Lets help them have a better future together!