Novazzano, Switzerland - UPF-Ticino held the second Peace Cup tournament in the town of Novazzano on May 5. This event brought together 11 teams of young soccer players for one day of sports under the motto “Play Football Make Peace.”
The purpose of the tournament was to spend a day of fun together by sharing healthy values such as team spirit, non-violence, and non-discrimination. For the fulfillment of this purpose, the coaches not only taught the children how to play football but they were also good educators, conveying peaceful and loyal behavior to the children of their teams. The players were 10 Swiss-Italian teams and one from the Italian neighborhood. There were boys and girls ages 10 to 11 representing all kinds of cultural backgrounds. One boy with a difficult physical challenge won the prize for courage.
At the end of the tournament, besides the main prize for fair play and noble behavior, many other trophies were given out, awarding even good support by the spectators. Every team received at least one award; the Peace Cup trophy was won by the team from Rancate and, for the second time, Melide won the first rank in tournament. The president of UPF-Ticino, Giuseppe Termine, read a very enthusiastic letter from a participant in the previous Peace Cup, in which the author, a young photographer, expressed her deepest feelings about the benefit of peaceful challenges among people.
Two newspapers published articles about the event.
For more information and photos click here.