One year and 1,700 children later: what is changing on the Hope League pitches?
A year ago, the Hope League expected to reach more than 600 children across six locations in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. Today, 1,708 children are taking part. But the education teams point to another change, one that is harder to quantify: children interacting more, cooperating with each other and becoming more comfortable playing on the same teams across genders and communities.
They set out to create football academies. One year later, the education teams are mostly talking about something else.
In Tirbespiyê, northeastern Syria, Salma Ali recalls that, at the beginning, the children did not interact as they do today. There were difficulties accepting and engaging with others, both between boys and girls and among different groups within the community. Twelve months later, she says they “accept each other much more” and have improved their ability to cooperate, work as a team and build positive relationships.
In Raqqa, Louay Al-Ghadhban talks about new friendships and social relationships among participants. The children, he explains, have learned the fundamentals of football, but also what the project aimed to place at the heart of every training session: “a broader and more meaningful purpose: social cohesion”.
The Hope League began in June 2025 with the idea of using football to help rebuild community ties in societies affected by years of conflict. One year later, the project has already grown far beyond its initial expectations.
Across Raqqa, Kobane, Tirbespiyê and Al-Hasakah, 1,325 children are taking part. Another 300 participate in Sulaymaniyah, in Iraqi Kurdistan, and 83 in Erbil. In total, 1,708 children are involved across six academies, together with at least 178 parents and caregivers.
But that may not be the figure that best explains what is happening.
Learning to play together
The Hope League does not approach football simply as a sporting activity. Its methodology puts cooperation, equality, collective work and conflict resolution at the centre. A match is also a space to connect with others, make decisions together and learn how to navigate differences.
At Arbat refugee camp in Sulaymaniyah, Ainda Suleiman has observed a similar evolution during the project’s first year to that described by the Syrian teams. Boys, she explains, interact better with one another, while girls have gained skills and knowledge of the game. And boys and girls are increasingly comfortable playing on the same teams.
“They play together and understand each other,” she says.
These are observations made by the teams working with the children every day, rather than the findings of a long-term impact assessment. But the fact that professionals from different academies are identifying similar changes offers an early indication of what can happen when cooperation, rather than competition alone, becomes part of the game.
594 girls have taken to the pitch
One year into the project, the figures also reveal the challenges that remain. Of the 1,708 participants, 594 are girls and 1,114 are boys. Roughly one in three participants is a girl.
The picture, however, varies considerably depending on the location. In Sulaymaniyah, 151 girls and 149 boys are taking part, almost achieving gender parity. In Erbil, there are 19 girls and 64 boys. Across the four academies in Syria, 424 girls and 901 boys participate.
At the same time, both Salma Ali and Ainda Suleiman identify greater acceptance of boys and girls playing together as one of the changes they have witnessed during this first year.
The figures and testimonies tell two stories at once: bringing more girls into football remains a challenge, but the pitch itself can become a place to begin questioning some of the barriers that prevent boys and girls from playing together.
When the challenge is simply being able to keep playing
This summer, there is a much less abstract obstacle: extreme heat.
In Tirbespiyê, sessions take place on outdoor pitches, and high temperatures make it difficult for children to complete training sessions comfortably. They also make the work of education teams and volunteers more challenging. Ainda Suleiman describes similar difficulties during the summer sessions in Sulaymaniyah.
Despite this, activities continue.
The Hope League will continue until December 2026. The project was conceived as a pilot to develop a sport-based intervention model that could be applied in contexts affected by armed conflict. NOVACT leads the integration of human rights, nonviolence and gender approaches into the project.
The project is implemented together with the Barça Foundation, Escola de Futbol La Caserna, Un Ponte Per, DOZ International, IDare and Casa Nostra Casa Vostra, with the support of the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation.
The final evaluation will make it possible to assess how far these changes have gone. For now, one year on, there are two pictures. One is easy to quantify: 1,708 children, almost three times the initial target. The other is harder to measure: education teams in different cities reporting that children are cooperating more, building new relationships and becoming more comfortable playing together.
For a project created to explore how relationships can be rebuilt after war, this is probably where the most interesting part begins.
*Cover photo: Patricia Simón.
