THE IMPACT OF YOUR SUPPORT
By being part of Soccer Aid for UNICEF you are joining one big team – united by a goal to help protect play for children everywhere so they can grow up happy, healthy, and ready to take on the world.
These films show some of the vital work that UNICEF is doing around the world thanks to donations to Soccer Aid for UNICEF, and how your support helps.
This is why we play. Soccer Aid for UNICEF is protecting play for every child.
There’s nothing quite like Soccer Aid for UNICEF. Entertaining? Yes. Competitive to the highest level? Absolutely. But, as our opening film explains, this star-studded game is so much more. It brings the nation together with one goal: for every child to grow up safe, healthy and able to play.
Children are always the worst affected by war. Daniel Mays hears the first-hand experiences of nine children who are living in or have been displaced by conflict.
Right now, one in six children are living in conflict zones. In this film we hear from children who have been directly affected by conflict and war around the world, including Gaza, Ukraine and Syria. UNICEF works with local communities and partners to help safeguard every child affected by conflict.
Sam Thompson travels to Guatemala to see how UNICEF is using sport to support children, like football-lover Adan, to thrive.
Sam visited the Juego Limpio ‘Fair Play’ football programme in Sololá, Guatemala where UNICEF-trained volunteers help provide a safe space to play, using the power of sport to promote values such as respect, equality, and teamwork.
Oti Mabuse meets Outtara and Ajam, two mothers in Cote d’Ivoire who attended a UNICEF-supported programme after giving birth prematurely.
One third of newborn deaths in Cote d’Ivoire are due to prematurity. Oti visited a UNICEF-supported unit offering the specialised care pre-term babies need to grow healthy and thrive. These units are being rolled out across the country so more families have access to critical support for babies born prematurely.
Coleen Rooney visits Poland and meets families displaced by the war in Ukraine, including Katerina and her son, Murat.
Since the outbreak of war in 2022, many families have been forced to leave Ukraine and build new lives in countries like neighbouring Poland. At the UNICEF-supported specialist school that Murat now attends, Coleen saw how activities like sensory play and speech therapy are supporting him to express himself.
Sanjeev Bhaskar introduces Subahi who lost her daughter Anila to measles following devastating floods in 2022.
In 2022 Pakistan was hit with some of the worst flooding seen in a generation, leaving hundreds of thousands of children unvaccinated after routine immunisation coverage drastically dropped. This film is about the extraordinary lengths UNICEF will go to reach every child, including Subahi’s 8-month-old son Anil, with life-saving vaccines.
Olivia Colman tells us how UNICEF provides life-saving support to children and families at risk of malnutrition in conflict-affected areas, like 2-year-old Barah from Sudan.
Over 25 million people in Sudan – half of the population – are facing a daily struggle to feed their families since civil war erupted in April 2023. In this film we meet Huda, a mother whose son Barah is suffering from severe acute malnutrition. UNICEF provides nutrition supplies to hospitals in Sudan, including ready-to-use therapeutic food and therapeutic milk that support the recovery of malnourished children like Barah.