One of LitCam’s aims is to encourage confidence and promote greater equality of opportunity for children and young people from educationally and socially disadvantaged families.  Additionally, we support integration for children and young people whose mother tongue is not German.

Current social developments reveal that despite compulsory school attendance, many children and young people fail to reach an adequate standard of education. In Germany, more than 65,000 young people (source: Bildungsbericht 2010 von Bund und Ländern - 2010 National and Federal States’ Education Report) leave school every year without completing a diploma. Approximately one-fifth of all 15-year-olds are unable to read and write properly, which means they will have difficulty in finding a job.

These statistics inspired LitCam in 2007 to launch one of its first projects in Frankfurt. The idea behind the project was to combine football training with academic tutoring. LitCam hoped that this combination would provide the children with an opportunity to improve their social skills in a team setting. In addition the project aspired to arouse interest in education and culture among young people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds.

The “Football meets Culture” project runs for at least one whole school year. 24 children take part in two groups of 12 participants each. The children have  football training twice a week, followed by academic tutoring based on the children's particular needs. The football training is carried out in cooperation with a well-known local football club. While the academic tutoring is geared to the individual needs of the participants, the emphasis is usually on German language facilitation. Football is a reoccurring theme in lessons. For example, arithmetic exercises use football league tables, or the students read stories about football.

Each month, the students attend a cultural event. The cultural events have quite varied themes.  Themes vary from a visit to a museum, to a rap poetry workshop, or a rally-run through a library, just to name a few examples. “Football meets Culture” has expanded since its inaugural project commenced 2007 in Frankfurt. Currently, “Football meets Culture” teams have been established in Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart, Gelsenkirchen, Nürnberg, Neuötting, Würzburg, Mainz, Dortmund, Bochum, Herne, Essen, Duisburg and Köln.

“The objective is long-term improvement in the children's knowledge of German, among other areas, and in the process, to facilitate transition to secondary school”, explains Karin Plötz, LitCam’s director. “And the great success proves us right. We have seen that the children taking part are also able to concentrate much better in their normal lessons and that their achievement in school improves considerably. The children's behaviour with their peers has also changed for the better. They are less aggressive and calmer in dealing with their fellow pupils.”

Cooperations

The DFL Stiftung is a nationwide partner since 2012.

Furthermore we cooperate with a variety of local, regional and nationwide sponsors, who share our vision of the importance of "Competence for life".

Awarded!

In October 2010, the “Football meets Culture" project received the education award “Lernanstoß  Learning Kick-Off" from the Nuremberg Football Cultural Academy - Akademie für Fußball-Kultur. We also received the distinction “Phineo Wirkt!” in the area of children in poverty in 2012 and in the area Sports and Education in 2015.

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