​Forty-two children and adolescents are participating in the “Unidos por la Juventud (United for Youth)” project, learning human values and putting them into practice through sports training at the Fundación Juventud del Valle, one of the LEO Fund's community partners in Colombia.

Cali, Colombia a city located in a valley between Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains, is home to a neighborhood called Terrón Colorado. This neighborhood is at the heart of a community initiative aimed at encouraging children and adolescents to spend their free time learning techniques to make passes that score goals in soccer—rather than learning to "take passes," which is street slang for inhaling cocaine.

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In the Terrón Colorado neighborhood, as in other low-income areas of the city, children and adolescents are often exposed to micro-trafficking of illicit drugs in parks, sporting areas, as well as outside schools, where other teens and young adults try to entice them into using cocaine or other illegal substances.

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The United for Youth project, carried out by the Juventud del Valle Foundation in cooperation with The LEO Fund, seeks to strengthen the human values of the 42 participating children and adolescents, positively influencing their life outlook through the practice of soccer. The project also involves the support of parents and/or caregivers as a strategy to use free time constructively and prevent the use of psychoactive substances (PAS).

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During the first phase of the project’s implementation, 99 soccer training sessions have been conducted, with weekly educational workshops discussing 10 specific values while utilizing a variety of playful methodologies. These values include respect, empathy, responsibility, honesty, solidarity, justice, perseverance, friendship, generosity, and tolerance.

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In both training spaces, the boys, girls, and adolescents have been learning alongside their peers (according to age), divided into three groups—known in soccer as categories: U-8 (children under eight years old), U-13 (children under thirteen years old), and U-15 (children under fifteen years old).

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During each training session, the soccer coaches observe the participants' behavior to identify whether the human values ​​they have learned are being put into practice with their teammates.

According to the coaches, the U-13 youth have seen positive results in the value of respect. Before the project began, the children didn't pay attention to their coaches’ instructions and played hit-and-run games with their teammates. However, following the values ​​training, they have shown more interest in the training exercises explained by the coaching staff and are establishing a different, less aggressive relationship with each other.

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According to David Julián Galíndez, coach of the U-15 youth category and project coordinator, the adolescents who have participated in the human values ​​training have been more empathetic and more perseverant. "When we participated in the Liga Star tournament with players from other sports clubs, the adolescents began to support each other during games, playing as a real team, assisting teammates to recover the ball, improving the pace of the game, and managing to turn the score around."

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For Michael Gómez Portilla, 15, the learning opportunities have been valuable. "I really don't want them to end," he said.

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Although work continues to achieve greater results with participants, there exists a paradox with some parents or caregivers, who themselves need to improve their commitment to learning values. According to Galíndez, parents can sometimes be the biggest obstacles to children and adolescents participating in human values ​​workshops because they are not supportive in taking them to the trainings due to the time commitment and other factors.