A multi-colored football graced the University of the Philippines (UP) football grounds as international advocacy group Spirit of Football visited the UAAP football games last April 15 and 16 to “use the power of football to promote key messages.”
According to Spirit of Football Philippine campaigner Valeree Nolasco, Spirit of Football collects signatures from different football players, coaches, and fans from all over the world on their signature football, which they say is football’s equivalent of the “Olympic torch,” in the group’s campaign for “gender equality and climate action.”
“What Spirit of Football does is in every World Cup, the ball that we have travels from London, where the first football matched started, and then it goes around a portion of the world until it reaches the World Cup,” Nolasco told Fullcourtfresh.com.
She explains that the organization’s football serves as a signature sheet where people sign as a “pledge” to support their advocacies.
“So this year, Spirit of Football decided to join the Women’s World Cup,” Nolasco said, saying the ball has 7,050 signatures as of posting time, which include the names of the members of the Philippine women’s national football team.
“We conduct workshops around the world on the issues of fairplay, sustainable development goals, and our current advocacies of gender equality and climate action, but using the power of football,” Nolasco explained.
In their UAAP visit, Spirit of Football has gathered signatures from the Far Eastern University, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, and University of Santo Tomas women’s teams, as well as the UP men’s football team.
“Research on the significance of engaging existing communities to take climate action has inspired Spirit of Football to use The Ball to communicate climate change in a more tangible way and unite people who care about both football and the earth-ball we live on,” the group states on their website.
“With more than three billion people passionate about football, the football community holds huge potential to bring about positive change,” Spirit of Football adds.
Climate scientists have declared a global “climate emergency” due to massive greenhouse gas emission, especially by fossil-fuel dependent industrialized countries, and have set the threshold for increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
According to the late Environment Secretary Gina Lopez in a statement in 2016, “anything more than 1.5 degrees will destroy the possibilities for the quality of life.”
