A delegation from the Chisinau City Hall, Directorate General for Education, Youth and Sport, headed by Deputy Mayor Angela Cutasevici, was on a working visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, on 24-28 February 2024, at the invitation of the Cross Cultures Project Association (CCPA).
The Moldovan delegation in Copenhagen also included: representatives of Penitentiary No. 10, Protection of Children's Rights and Families with Children Policy Department, Public Order Department of the National Public Security Inspectorate, Crime Investigation Section of the Prevention Department of the National Public Security Inspectorate and the Moldovan Football Federation.
The CCPA Association was created to carry out the OFFS (Fun Football in Schools) Programme in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1998 as a peace-building intervention. Focusing on children between the ages of 6 and 12, CCPA is making a concerted effort to include minors from disadvantaged backgrounds, children with disabilities and those from marginalized populations, including children from the Republic of Moldova, in the programme.
The OFFS programme is based on the Danish "fun football" methodology and pedagogy, using sport and fun games as a tool for education and prevention. The training provided to volunteer coaches includes theoretical and practical sessions as well as workshops on relevant topics in child psychology, pedagogy and kinesiology.
Open Fun Football Schools (OFFS) brought together thousands of children, parents, coaches, teachers and other community members in an effort to promote peaceful religious and ethnic coexistence, gender equality, tolerance and social cohesion.
The OFFS programme provides a platform through which children and adults from different ethnic and social backgrounds can communicate and develop long-term, meaningful and integrated relationships. The programme targets families, children and young people exposed to long-term violence in post-war areas and localities once exposed to ethnic cleansing, war atrocities and hatred.
The aim of the visit was to explore how juvenile crime prevention can be organised as a formalised interdisciplinary collaboration between authorities and organisations working with vulnerable children and their families.
In Denmark, this model is called SSP - cooperation between the education sector, social authorities, police and relevant civil society organisations.
The study visit to Copenhagen included meetings with representatives of the Copenhagen Police, representatives of the SSP department coordinated by the Municipality of Copenhagen, meetings with representatives of the sports project at the Centre for Vulnerable and Criminally Threatened Youth, which is part of the Social Administration of the Municipality of Copenhagen.
The aim of the SSP Department is to help young people with complex issues build a bridge to their communities by reaching out to a range of different partners. SSP works with sports associations and other community stakeholders to include young people in society and provide them with opportunities to escape vulnerability and crime.
Deputy Mayor Angela Cutasevici said that the Chisinau LPA can take over many of these elements of education and crime prevention, in collaboration with other institutions in Moldova, which were represented in the working group.