Our Change projects highlight important issues, raise necessary questions, and provoke positive change. We design them in partnership with influential organisations, local communities, and involve those we support as leaders, contributors and participants.
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Our Next Event: "COPA 71" Screening x Amnesty International's Football Welcomes
COPA 71
Special Screening at Ciné Lumière on March 16th, 2024
Our next project: Karmabank connected Amnesty’s Football Welcomes project with the Institut Français, QPR, and the FA for a screening + Panel discussion + Q&A with Uk & Afghan women’s football players on March 16th at 3:45pm.
#footballwelcomes #footballforall #humanrights #WearWhatYouWant #SEE
What to Expect:
Powerful film screening, panel with UK & Afghan footballers on the wider social impact of women’s football, an introduction by Sandy Abi-Elias to Amnesty’s Football Welcomes project, and a chance to meet and hear from players from QPR’s Women’s Team, with a special appearance from one of the Afghan “Girl Power” team, who fled the Taliban after the fall of Kabul.
What is COPA 71?
Mexico City, August 1971. 100,000 spectators going wild for the international football players battling it out on the pitch. It’s one of the greatest moments in international football history. And it’s likely you’ve never even heard of it. This is Copa 71, the unofficial Women’s World Cup. Dismissed by both FIFA and domestic football associations around the world, this event has been entirely written out of history. Until now.
About the Panel
As part of Women’s History month we have connected Amnesty’s Football Welcomes project with the Institut Français, QPR & the FA for a screening + Panel + Q&A with UK & Afghan football players. Prior to the film, the IF will show a short intro on Football Welcomes.
Who is on the Panel?
Since the COPA World Cup, the women’s game has come a long way, but only in certain parts of the world. In partnership with the Institut Français, Amnesty International and QPR Football club, we’re delighted to present a post screening panel where we’ll discuss the real experience of the women’s game and the wider social impact of inclusive sport.
On the panel will be Nicole Melling, Kasha Petit & Courtany Ward-Chambers from the QPR women’s football team, Najma Arefi who played for Herat City in Afghanistan before seeking asylum in the UK, Sandy Abi-Elias, Women’s Football Officer for Amnesty International and Maria Fernandes.
This is our third-sports related film event with the Institut Français, and the fourth on the subject of female equality in sports and the arts, in a cooperation stretching back over 5 years to the charity premiere of Ai Wei Wei’s “The Rest.”
More on our Social Impact events with the Institut Français
The workshops organised by the IF following film screenings attract up to 50 participants. For the first in 2021, we invited newly arrived Afghan women evacuated from Kabul, some of whom had never been to a cinema before.
This event is in solidarity with the #noexcuse campaign to end violence against women and girls, and with our commitment to #SEE: Supporting Equality Everywhere.
A collaboration with The Institut Français
The Institut Français is the French Agency of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in charge of promoting French culture overseas and international cultural exchanges.
Najma Arefi
Afghan Female Footballer (Fled Afghanistan 2021)
“When we were in school, everyone was saying, ‘I will be a teacher, I will be a nurse…’ and it’s so hard for me to see them now. Because we have the opportunity, we should be their voice and speak up for them: girls can study, girls can be everything they want to be.”
Sandy Abi-Elias
Women’s Football Officer at Amnesty International UK
“The French Football Federation’s ban on religious clothing not only prevents Muslim women from playing football with a hijab but also coaching and officiating, violating their rights to freedom of expression, association, and religion. All women, anywhere in the world, should be able to #WearWhatYouWant We stand in solidarity with every single woman and in defiance of all those who deny them their rights.” #footballwelcomes #footballforall #humanrights
QPR Women’s Team
Team Members from the QPR Women’s Team will offer their take on playing professional sports.
“The women’s game is now continuing to grow, having this many women players, inspiring the whole of the UK and England to get involved in the sport in some way. The sport will never look back.”
-Kasha Petit, Captain at QPR FC Women
”This is me. I am going to School.
Dream picture drawn during the first Institut Français "Film + Art" session.By an afghan grandmother who was never allowed to go to school.
