The One Game, One Community weeks of action are now just days away.
With professional and grassroots clubs, schools and community organisations up and down the country into their final week of preparations, there are still a number of ways in which you can get involved.
One of the driving forces of the weeks of action, which take place from Thursday 16th October-Tuesday 28th October, are the wide-ranging projects set up by community groups that have been awarded One Game, One Community grants from Kick It Out and the Football Foundation, the UK's largest sports charity.
A690 Youth Initiative
Amongst those groups this year is the A690 Youth Initiative, based in Sunderland.
The initiative was established in 2004 to provide a range of social, educational and leisure opportunities for young people aged 8-19.
The initiative has attained charitable status, and their current youth work programmes include detached youth work, Friday night football, outdoor activities programmes and a volunteering project.
The project will be promoted by football development workers and detached youth workers with groups of young people in youth clubs, community groups, schools and churches.
Workshops
Workers promoting the project will also deliver an educational workshop that will focus on community cohesion issues such as gang culture, misuse of drugs and alcohol, knife crime and anti-social behaviour.
The aims of the project which has earned the group a One Game, One Community grant are to:
> Celebrate diversity and inclusion by engaging groups of young people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds in the events.
> To address social conflict by engaging teams from rival gangs from estates across the city.
> To promote social cohesion by encouraging young people to participate in team activities with other groups of young people who they may not otherwise engage with.
> To provide young people with positive activities during school holiday periods
> To encourage young people to participate in regular physical exercise
