Instead of heading to Brazil, Dvorak chose to address up to 800 young people at the 2nd Pacific Youth and Sports Conference in Noumea, New Caledonia yesterday.
“It was very important for me to come here for this conference because we planted the seed about the health programme Football For Health, 11 For Health, at the last conference which was in Auckland,” Dvorak says.
“We implemented it in two countries, Solomon Islands and Tonga, and it was important to now get the feedback from the two countries and consider, or to find the way forward, to implement the programme in all the Pacific islands.
“That was the main motivation, and I think what the Oceania Football Federation is doing is an example of how to use the power of football for the different social activities – not as a lip service – but really putting effort in through the programme Just Play.
“As we have learned from the Peace and Sport prize awarded to OFC for the Just Play programme, it’s actually leading in social activities and bringing them into daily life and this is important.”
Dvorak had a tough act to follow as he came behind keynote speakers from the Pacific community who shared their personal stories of courage in the face of the difficulties presented by life and society.
Football Federation Samoa CEO Sarai Bareman was the first to share with the audience, giving some background on the barriers she has faced as a woman trying to build a successful career in football, and in a male-dominated Samoan community.
Bareman was followed by Kai Lammert and Chris Pyne from Football Federation Australia Para and Melanie Giles of Special Olympics New Zealand before Paralympic athlete Ryadh Sallem from Cap Sport Art Aventure Amitié in France took the floor.
“I was very touched by all those reports. Sarai, do not get frustrated by the world of men, continue with your work because I can assure that the future for you is brighter than you can expect,” Dvorak said before moving on to his key message.
“The reality in the world of FIFA is we are trying to change something. Physical activity is vital for a healthy life for all of us. For girls, boys, able-bodied and disabled or whatever we call ourselves.
“We are all confronted with what I call unhealthy drugs – fast food, soft drinks and physical inactivity. These will lead to being overweight, to diabetes, and other kinds of Non Communicable Diseases and this is in particular this is one of the most common problems in the Pacific.
“We have done a number of studies which show that playing football regularly or some type of collective sport will have a faster improvement of physical fitness than just simple strength exercises or jogging.
Dvorak says Football For Health is introduced to children at a young age to increase physical activity while also promoting awareness of communicable and non-communicable diseases.
“It is a very simple programme. There are 11 different elements or skills you have to learn to play football – passing, dribbling, heading, controlling the ball and defending.
“We took the 11 most important health risk factors and for each one created a message. For example passing the ball, and the message is respect girls and women.”
To reinforce those social messages, FIFA signed up key footballers to become ambassadors for each of the 11 messages, including 2013 Ballon D’or nominees Christiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jnr and Lionel Messi as well as five-time Women’s Ballon D’or winner Marta Vieira da Silva of Brazil.
Dvorak says it is an extremely popular programme with supporting results showing a significant increase in health knowledge as well as high rates of approval from the kids themselves.
In the Pacific region the programme has only been introduced in the Solomon Islands and Tonga, but Dvorak says it should be fanning out around Oceania in the very near future.
“I would like to branch out from the pilot, and to OFC and its very active head of social responsibility Franck Castillo, I hope we can bring this to every country in the Pacific. It’s not expensive to introduce.”
The Pacific Youth and Sport Conference got underway on Monday, 2 December and will continue through to Friday, 5 December. It has covered three main themes Health, Education, Employment and Capacity Building and Social Inclusion.
Each of the delegations present will have the opportunity to present projects to tackle social issues affecting youth in their countries with the overall theme of using sport as a development tool.
The best projects will be awarded funding to help see those projects put into action in the winning countries.

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