A Charity For Children
MTG United for Peace gives children the chance to meet and make friends through football.
Excitement is in the air
Thursday the 6 October is a day of big excitement. Anticipation fills the air as the young football teams arrive at a sunny Gardermoen airport, just outside Oslo, from their twelve different home countries. They’ve all come to compare strengths and determine who’s going to win the 2011 finals of MTG United for Peace cup here in Norway. But the children are also here to have a great time and to meet new friends from all over the place, over borders and often over language barriers.
The MTG United for Peace chairman Jan Åge Fjørtoft greets all the children at the door saying hello, shaking hands and effortlessly cracking jokes. Team UK is the first to arrive at the hotel after a rather bumpy flight in turbulent weather from England. There’s a bit of umming and ahhing and finally a big giggle as the girls discover that there are healthy brown sandwiches and fruit for lunch and that the search for their usual crisps is futile.
The teams arrive throughout the day, sometimes one by one and sometimes paired up with another team. A lot of players make their initial contact with their competitors on the shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel. There are smiles all around.
There’s plenty to do for the teams after lunch, they all get given a bag full of football kit along with a few presents. There are various board games to enjoy and the children get stuck into it.
The Slovenian team practice football on the parking lot even when the rain starts to pour it down whilst team Lithuania is busy chilling out using the hotel's computer games. They are searching for a football game before they catch a glance of the big TV screen where console games can be played. It seems Barcelona and Manchester City are by far the most popular teams when the kids get their hands, or rather consoles, on the FIFA 12 game.
Some teams have come a really long way; the team from Ghana had to travel for more than 12 hours in order to arrive at the hotel close to the airport. But that doesn’t seem to bother the boys from Ghana much as they arrive just as happy and bouncy as they did last year.
“It’s simply amazing to see the way so many kids from completely different backgrounds smile when they get together and make new connections”, says MTG United for Peace project manager Alireza Tajbakhsh. “That alone I think is what makes it all worthwhile.”
Tomorrow things will really heat up as the football matches gets under way. The children will also participate in activities at the Nobel Peace Center, taking part in their “School of Tolerance” before the Nobel Peace Prize winner gets elected.
