The positive impact of Coaching for Life

On the 12th anniversary of the start of the Syrian War, Coaching for Life, a football programme that builds sustainable resilience in children living in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, continues to have a profound positive impact.

Using a blueprint developed over 38 years of Arsenal in the Community’s work in north London, combined with Save the Children’s experience in conflict and humanitarian crises, Coaching for Life uses the power of football to build a sense of belonging and improve the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of children.

Launched in Za’atari in 2018 – one of the world’s most populous refugee camps which hosts around 80,000 people, more than half of whom are children – Coaching for Life focusses on supporting children and their families who fled their homes since the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011.

A new film launched today tells the stories of Jana and Ward, Syrian refugees who fled to Jordan with their families to set up a new life in the camp. Click the play button above to discover their journey.

Jana is a 13-year-old girl from Dar’a, Syria, who lives in Za’atari camp following the conflict in her hometown. Jana’s commitment to Coaching for Life means she travels by bike across the camp to attend the sessions. A shy and quiet girl, before joining the programme, Jana found it hard to express her emotions and opinions.

“I have lived in Za’atari for 10 years. We came here after the war,” Jana says in the film.

“Whenever there was aircraft, I would get scared by the noise. So we came here. My father got us here.

“I was so happy I signed up with Arsenal. When I play football, I feel happy. I feel full of energy and optimism,” added Jana.

Jana’s mother spoke about arriving in Jordan and the impact of Coaching for Life on her daughter. “We had nothing at all. We just escaped to save ourselves with our IDs only. We got here, we lived in tents, and we suffered.

“Coaching for Life changed Jana. 180 degrees, it changed my daughter. I think she started to love life again. It was like she had been dead, a body with no soul, but suddenly she started to love life, to love people.”

Ward, a 20-year-old assistant coach — Meet Ward

Ward is 20 years old and has lived in the camp since 2012. After participating in Coaching for Life, he wanted to become a junior coach so he could support other children in the camp. When he turned 18, he began to work for Save the Children as an assistant coach.

Ward’s mother talks about leaving Syria back in 2012, “We left Syria to come here. The strikes, the horror and fear. We were worried about the children, and we left with them.”

Ward added, “When we came here, the situation changed. We left our friends. Some didn’t come with us, and some died.

“After we got into this programme, we learnt how to build relationships on the pitch and how to make decisions.”

Reflecting on five years of Coaching for Life, Vinai Venkatesham, CEO of Arsenal, said:

“The stories we hear from children and their families in Za’atari shows the power football has to transform lives in our communities worldwide.

“We've taken the work we’ve developed over nearly 40 years with our north London community to support young children who’ve fled from the Syrian war, it’s inspiring to see the effect we can have.

“None of this would be possible without the Arsenal family coming together to provide a sense of belonging around the world.”

Speaking about the evolution of Coaching for Life, Mairead King, Director of The Arsenal Foundation, added:

“Over the next five years, our aim is to achieve long-term transformative and sustainable change for children in the Za’atari camp. To reflect this ambition, Coaching for Life has evolved to take into consideration the challenges facing the Za’atari community today, lessons learned from the last five years, and children’s voices to ensure their experiences are truly understood.”

“This includes making the programme sustainable by training more coaches, introducing mini-football leagues so there are more opportunities for children to participate, focusing on greater diversity by including children with disabilities, and having achieved gender equity on the programme, moving to a gender transformative approach by including boys and men in the conversation on the challenges that the girls and women face in the camp.”

An independent evaluation commissioned by The Arsenal Foundation and Save the Children to better understand the impact of Coaching for Life showed several positive outcomes that have supported improved mental health and psychosocial benefits among the participants:

Close to 90% of participants said they always felt safe as part of the programme
More than 90% felt that there was often or always an adult they trusted, who listened to them, told them when they did a good job, or really cared about them
Most child participants commented that the programme had improved their relationships with their parents, siblings or caregivers, as well as enhancing their self-worth, self-esteem and confidence
Female participants tended to report improvements in terms of learning to better express themselves, speak out, and overcome their shyness
Male participants tended to report improvements in terms of learning to treat others with respect, kindness, and less aggression

Lou Jasmine has Arsenal in her blood. She grew up in a family full of Gooners in the days of Ian Wright and Tony Adams, with few visible woman and non-binary photographers or footballers to look up to. What a difference two decades make.

From filling family photo albums with shots from disposable cameras to photographing our squad for our Women’s Champions League campaign, Lou came full circle.

For Women’s History Month, we spoke to her about inclusivity, creativity and how Arsenal is more than a football club.

Tell us about how your connection to Arsenal began

It’s been from birth! I was born into an Arsenal family: my granddad, my granny, my cousins, my mum, my stepdad and my dad are huge Gooners. We’ve all loved the team, loved the club, through thick and thin and all the highs and the lows.

I remember getting my very first kit for my birthday when I was 10 years old - the red JVC shirt by Nike in the 90s. It’s a wicked shirt but it’s the collar, especially, that I love. I don't think I have the shorts anymore but I’ve still got the shirt and I still wear it!

When I was in primary school, I even made my own hand-drawn Arsenal magazine, cover to cover, with a word search and everything. I never got to go to a game at Highbury when I was younger but I would watch them all the time on TV. It would be a big family event. We'd all go over to my grandparents on a Sunday and watch it with all my cousins. So from childhood to now, being an Arsenal supporter has meant a considerable amount to my life.

Lou Jasmine with Katie McCabe, Rafaelle and Lia Walti

What does the club mean to you off the pitch?

Community is the biggest thing that stands out for me compared to any other football club. Arsenal is so much more than a football club and it's always been like that. Even when I was a kid, even when I didn’t have the chance to go to games, I always felt like a part of the club. I’ll meet other Arsenal supporters, whether it’s here or abroad, and there’s this shared understanding and unity. We instantly feel like family.

I remember my first time at the Emirates all those years ago and I immediately felt: “This is my home.” Now I live in Highbury so I've been to quite a few matches, but it’s also the sense of community outside of the ground. What's amazing is that you see everyone in an Arsenal shirt: all ages, all genders. It’s beautiful! If you go into a coffee shop at the weekend, you can hear people talking about the game. Arsenal is so entrenched in this area and that’s so wonderful to live through.

What the club does to support inclusivity as well is incredible. At the end of the day, if we want to look at football on a wider social scale, community is what helps people not feel so isolated. When people don't feel isolated, it helps their mental health. People want to belong to something and Arsenal really reinforces that across the board. You can be whoever and still get to be part of this club in a big way. You still mean something.

Shooting our squad for the Women’s Champions League campaign must have been a dream come true?

Shooting the squad was a huge full-circle moment for me. For someone who loved and grew up with football but never really saw women in football, it was absolutely incredible.

I have a funny video from my boyfriend last night. We were coming through Highbury and Islington station and I spotted the Champions League ad on the video billboard. We chased after it and had to wait until it came back again to get a photo but literally, a dream come true.

When my boyfriend took a photo of me by the billboard, a little boy no older than six saw the billboard and shouted “look Dad, it’s Arsenal Women!” He stood by the billboard for a bit waiting for the photo to come back and the excitement and awe on his face was so beautiful. That’s the impact inclusivity is having.

The photoshoot was one thing - a really, really special moment as a fan - and then to see the product of that on my home turf was amazing. Arsenal Women are one of the most successful women's football teams in Britain and that was long before women's football was having the incredible moment that it’s having now. They’ve always been known as the club who were smashing it.

Lou Jasmine poses with the Women's Champions League campaign

What’s it been like to see the progression of the women’s game in real time?

As someone who has always been into watching and playing sports, whether it’s football or athletics or basketball, it’s unbelievable. Even on the odd occasion that you’d see women's football on TV, it never felt like the coverage was good enough. The pitches didn't look very good. It was essentially treated as a second-rate sport.

It’s been incredible to see the development not just on a professional level but also in terms of inclusivity. It doesn’t feel like such a male-centric community or environment anymore. You see a lot more dads now kicking the ball with their daughters in a way that I never saw before. You see mums taking their daughters to games. It’s become like a family event and that is just so beautiful to see.

You even feel that when you’re inside the club and you're walking around the grounds. Looking at all the staff and everyone genuinely looks really happy to be working. Everyone's just beaming and buzzing around! It’s very heartwarming.

How did you find your way into photography?

Photography has always been there. My family would always have these stacks of photo albums and it was amazing to see my mom when she was younger and stuff like that. Even at an early age, I was so inspired by how candid everything looked and how you could get a beautiful feeling just from one photograph. So I went through disposable camera after disposable camera, taking pictures of my family and then, as I grew older, I got my own point-and-shoot.

I never really thought about becoming a photographer as a job. It never occurred to me that I could make a living from it, to be honest! I joined Instagram back in 2010 when it was basically a blog and as the app grew and developed and changed the way that we would view images, people started noticing the way I would take pictures. I had friends in music as well, so I’d take photos of them when they were playing and then more musicians would ask if I wanted to shoot their gig.

I was working in TV production at the time and I was really frustrated by the lack of opportunities for women, and black women in particular. The fact that no one would actually let me behind the camera is quite hilarious now! My desire to be creative but being constantly held back had quite a substantial effect on my mental health. So I just left. I left the industry, moved back in with my parents and just thought, “you know what, I can just try this photography thing. People are still asking me to take pictures - let's see if it works.” Six years later, here I am.

Photography is something that feels so instinctive to me. I’m at my happiest when I'm shooting, I’m having such a great time. It feels as easy as writing my name at times - I don't think about it. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the odd struggle with the technical side or avoid creativity blocks, but the act of picking up a camera is second nature. It unlocks a very deep part of me.

Lou Jasmine in Mikel Arteta's chair at Emirates Stadium

What does Women’s History Month mean to you?

Visibility is incredibly key. You can’t be what you can’t see: representation matters across the board. If you look at football and photography, both have been male-dominated industries for years, but the fact is now that women are banging down those doors.

It’s amazing because there are also men who are really helping and supporting that change. At the end of the day, it shouldn't be us versus them: it’s about unity, equality and cohesion. I’ve shot various films on inclusivity and representation - it means a huge deal to me.

Being a photographer can be a very lonely profession. I think creating a tribe of people who really understand you and understand your struggles is vital. Sometimes you’re aware that you are the only woman on set, so it’s great even to just see other woman and non-binary photographers in action.

There are so many incredible women and non-binary photographers who constantly inspire me. It’s been amazing to have people who look like me to look up to and to work alongside. Social media has been really key with that visibility and has allowed me to reach out to some of my fave artists and ask for advice and share experiences and assisted a few when I was starting out. It’s incredibly invaluable.

For anyone who's coming up in the industry and is unsure about their direction, I really do encourage them to reach out to people whose work they like and try to create a support network as well. It’s so important.

This International Women’s Day, I thought about all the women who inspired me creatively. Those aren't necessarily creatives themselves, but I wouldn't be where I am today without all the women in my life who inspire me continually.

We have come so far but I do continue to think very deeply about the safety of women in all areas. You can see progress in that women's football and women watching men’s football feels much safer now, but the general safety of women is still not there. I try and draw attention to how important that is in a creative way on my platform.