Even before the kick-off of the Euro 2024: Berlin celebrates with Kiez-Kick-European Championship and youth culture

Even before the kick-off of the Euro 2024: Berlin celebrates with Kiez-Kick-European Championship and youth culture

Berlin is about to be a major event: the Euro 2024. But already in the streets of the capital, enthusiasm and storms-and this is thanks to the "Kiez-Kick-EM" from "Buntkickgut Berlin". Here, children and adolescents can not only pursue their passion for football, but also try graffiti, break dance and rap. At the end of these events, the "Block Champs" are chosen in four different neighborhoods.

The start of the Kiez-Kick-European Championship took place on May 11th in the Haus der Jugend Anne Frank in Wilmersdorf. The next stop is Neukölln, where on May 25th on Schierkerplatz from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Then the colorful spectacle moves on to Wedding, where the ball rolls at the Safe Hub on June 1st, and ends on June 8th in the Kosmosviertel in Treptow-Köpenick.

The special thing about this event is not just the sporting competition. In addition to the street football tournaments, where children and young people can register for free, creative workshops are also offered. Under the guidance of international graffiti artists such as Mate, Gogoplata and Stereoheat, participants can design a Mural, a large-scale graffiti work of art in each of the four neighborhoods. These Murals, covering entire house walls, are created in cooperation with the Berlin Urban art agency XI de Sign.

The “Kiez-Kick-EM” project is funded by the State Sports Association Berlin and the Football and Culture Euro 2024. "As part of our Kiez-Kick-European Championships in Berlin, creative, sustainable and interdisciplinary places can be created in accordance with the effects logic of Buntkickgut," explains Rudi Heid, the initiator and head of the intercultural street football leagues from Buntkickgut. "The children and young people are the makers, the block champs. They can express their ideas and wishes, shape and implement them together."

LUCAS Fritz from the State Sports Association Berlin, project manager of the funding program "Sustainable Euro 2024 in Berlin", sees a great project in the Kiez-Kick-European Championship. "It enables children, adolescents and young adults to participate in low-threshold participation in the European Football Championship through sports and youth culture offers such as street football, graffiti and break dance. Measures of this kind have the potential to achieve people in their immediate vicinity and to integrate sustainably through sport."

Bernhard Gutowski, Managing Director of the Football and Culture Euro 2024, emphasizes: “With 57 nationwide projects and over 300 events, we look forward to a diverse and colorful art and cultural program for the UEFA Euro 2024. People. “

Due to these diverse activities and bringing together sport and culture, Berlin became a pulsating center of encounter and understanding before the euro 2024. All further information about the Kiez-Kick-European Championships in Berlin can be found at www.buntkickgut.org/blockchamps and the Instagram channel from Buntkickgut.