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What are the main lines of action of these centres?

To define the main lines of action of this global plan for the protection of vulnerable children, we should consider, on the one hand, the rights of children included in the 'Convention on the Rights of the Child' approved in 1989, and on the other, the United Nations’ 'Millennium Development Goals', where six of the eight objectives are aimed at children.


• To promote Universal Education for all boys and girls, without any type of discrimination.

All boys and girls have the right to go to school and get an adequate formal education. For this reason, the Solidarity Centres will be promoting the registration of all children at their corresponding state schools, and at the same time, will be providing extracurricular support and thoroughly monitoring their performances.
As well as promoting school attendance and overseeing their progress within the formal education system, the Solidarity Centres will also be promoting education from a less formal perspective that will help children who have never been to school, or who have done so on a very irregular basis, to achieve their full potential. The aim will be to incorporate informal education activities such as vocational workshops, computing, educational sessions dealing with values, health education and literacy classes to back- up what is learnt at school, as well as some time for play, leisure and sports.

• Guarantee access to health care for the most vulnerable children.

The Fundació FC Barcelona’s Solidarity Centres will be seeking to guarantee access to quality health care for all of the vulnerable children at the centre, offering them integral care that will include the following services:

- Regular health check-ups, that will monitor vaccinations, psycho-motor and emotional development, and also the detection of diseases and health disorders.
- Monitoring of the growth and nutritional support of the children in the centre.
- Educational sessions on health, nutrition and hygiene aimed at both children and their families. These sessions provide the keys for improving knowledge of basic health issues, which help prevent future outbreaks of the most common diseases in the region. The sessions will go much further than simply talking about the issues, the aim will be to listen to and share experiences with parents and therefore help them nderstand how important these aspects are for improving the quality both their own lives and those of their children.

• To provide children with psycho-social support.

These programmes are aimed at children that live in highly precarious conditions, many at a high risk of social exclusion, both on a socio-economic and an emotional level.
The work will aim to help the children develop positive attitudes to their everyday lives in relation to the people around them, and to find a way of solving the social or family conflicts that they are directly affected by. Sport will be used as an especially powerful tool for working on children’s psycho-social conditions, while work will also be done on any other everyday issues that may affect these boys and girls:

- Resolve problems and learn to make decisions.
- Combine both creative and critical thinking.
- Be able to communicate efficiently and learn the skills required for interpersonal relationships.
- Learn about self-awareness and empathy towards others.
- Learn to handle stress and emotions.

• Guarantee access to sport and leisure.

The centre will have adequate sports facilities, a football pitch and a multi-sports court for such sports and basketball, handball or futsal. These sports will be offered to the children in the centre but will also provide sports and physical education opportunities for other children in the area, placing special emphasis on sport not as an end in itself, but as an instrument for integration and for benefiting development.

• Comptar amb ONG/Fundació local amb experiència.

Pel funcionament i credibilitat del centre, la Fundació del FC Barcelona treballarà amb ONG i Fundacions locals que ens donaran suport en el funcionament diari del centre. Aquestes ONG hauran d’estar reconegudes a nivell local, i tindran experiència en projectes amb nens i adolescents en situació de vulnerabilitat.

• Provide qualified staff:

The centre will have staff qualified in a variety of disciplines, who will carry out the centre’s tasks with responsibility, ensuring the proper physical, social and emotional development of the children they are supporting. The centres will have: a Centre Coordinator, Social Care Workers, Educators, Monitors, Psychologists, Doctors and Nurses, Accountants, Administrative Workers, Cooks and Security Officers. All of these will have different responsibilities for developing different skills in all of the centre’s activities.

• Count on the support of local public organisations.

To sustain the projects, it is very important that the corresponding local authorities and Ministries are involved, and at every Centre it sets up, Fundació del FC Barcelona will be relying on their support for the provision of land for constructing or remodelling the centre and/or sports facilities, as well as providing the children at the centre with access to basic public services, especially in relation to education and health.

• Sustainability for the management and operation of the centre.

It is also important to ensure the sustainability of the centre once it has been set up and been in operation for 2 or 3 years, which will be the responsibility of Fundació del FC Barcelona and the other organisations collaborating in the project. The Foundation will work with other local actors, communities and local authorities and ministries to ensure a dynamic of working as a team that can make them feel that the project is “theirs” from the start, and after an initial investment to set the centre up, through support on a local level and from other institutions, the centre should be self-sustaining after the initial set-up period.