June 28 – Manchester City invited 50 community leaders to the City Football Academy in Manchester to take part in a week-long summit offering training in community football leadership. The initiative, supported by club sponsor Etihad Airways, completed its activities this week.
The objective of the Cityzens Giving Young Leaders Summit was to develop youth leaders from around the world who are tackling social issues in their communities by delivering youth-led football projects.
Attendees came from Manchester City’s network of community projects and from 12 cities around the world. They took part in on and off-the-pitch workshops to develop their community football leadership and coaching skills. Etihad Airways took care of flying them to Manchester.
The summit was delivered by 16 returning leaders from Manchester, New York, Melbourne, Cape Town, Kuala Lumpur, Barranquilla, Kolkata and São Paulo to their peers and new leaders from projects in Beijing, Bandung (Indonesia), Mexico City and Abu Dhabi.
The delegates, aged between 16-30 years old, are currently delivering community football projectsaddressing a range of issues affecting young people, including gang crime, substance abuse, HIV / AIDS, obesity and creating safe spaces for children to play football.
Omar Berrada, chief operating officer for Manchester City, said: “We are extremely proud that our community footprint continues to grow and develop every year – both locally where City Football Group has Clubs in Manchester, New York City and Melbourne but also globally. This summit epitomises the power of football to change lives and we’re delighted to be working with Etihad Airways to connect the young leaders together.
The week also saw leadership master classes from club experts as well as practical sessions on event and project management, safeguarding and monitoring and evaluation. On the final day the summit participants organised and delivered two football festivals for 240 local school children and Manchester City fans.
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