Past projects
2019-2021
Our projects between 2019-2021 spanned the globe and tackled a wide range of issues, including gender inequality and youth alcoholism.
UK
In parts of Tottenham, many of the girls joining Year 5 have low self-esteem and self-belief. The project helped develop leadership and teamwork skills at this important stage of growing up, empowering them to reach their full potential.
Nepal
Many girls in the country traditionally drop out of school early to marry and become housewives. The project gave girls a focus through football, with the aim of nurturing strong female future leaders to become role models in their community.
Armenia
The project ran in three neighbouring but very isolated communities, working to encourage community cohesion, specifically through the networks and personal bonds that football brings.
Peru
Youth alcoholism is a big problem in this community and leads to students not completing school. Our project focused on reducing alcoholism by giving students a purpose and a role in the community through their football team.
Ghana
Early school drop-out rates are very high among talented footballers in the region. The project provided a channel for these teenagers to develop their football skills professionally, while also continuing with their schooling.
Nepal
This project was run in a remote area in western Nepal, bringing girls together to play football to help build confidence and friendships. Longer term, the goals are to reduce levels of child marriage and teenage pregnancy in the community.
Uganda (Luweero district)
In a very remote village in central Uganda, this community’s school dropout rate was close to 70%. This project worked with both boys and girls with a strong focus on developing the qualities of discipline, teamwork, respect and conflict resolution that football offers to engage the children and help improve both their attendance and performance at school.
See how Ken’s work in Luweero district has benefitted his students by reading Lukwago’s story.
Our earlier projects
Since 2011, we have supported football & education projects in India, Colombia (Bogota, Uraba, San Pedro, Carepa), The Philippines, Chile, Mexico, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and Brazil, with over 900 children being directly impacted by The Huracan Foundation.
In that time, we’ve also indirectly supported parents, siblings, school teachers and the wider community, and many of our past Project Leaders have gone on to mentor our latest Huracan Foundation Project Leaders.
Mexico
In Mexico, our project leader Diana realised very quickly that football had the power to transform the lives of girls in Juarez, after witnessing the high school drop-out rates and difficulties they had in controlling their emotions. Football helped them develop the emotional strength they needed, and by running mixed sessions we also encouraged gender equality.
During the project, we ran three training sessions per week for a year, with an emphasis on promoting our core values of equality, team work, respect and resilience. In the four tournaments we participated in, we won three and were runners up in the other.
India
During Vikas’s time as a project leader in Pune, he witnessed the lack of focus on long-term life skills by children in his classroom, hindering them in potential future employment. With the football programme in place, there was a rapid improvement in attendance rates, academic performance, and significant growth in self-confidence and collaborative skills.
Each of our sessions focused on technical football skills as well as life skills - for example, passing drills would also encourage collaboration - and ended with self-analysis. In total we ran around 50 sessions for groups of 20 children, and also set up a football league.
Colombia
Our project in Colombia focused on approaching two problems: developing leadership, social and emotional skills in young people and bringing together public and private school students to bridge the inequality gap that exists in Colombia. Football was the perfect tool to bring together young people from different backgrounds for a common goal.
We ran weekly football sessions over six months with help by older students. In total we ran over 25 sessions, and the team took part in three different tournaments. Eight older students were involved as coaches and over 30 younger students were involved.
Since then, our Project Leader and Founder Henry has also founded a social enterprise in Colombia called CoSchool, training teachers to help give children problem solving, critical thinking and interpersonal skills. Five years since starting out with a £1,000 grant from The Huracan Foundation, CoSchool is now a successful B Corp employing 30 people.