Jürgen Griesbeck

Citizen organizations around the world use football (also know as soccer), as a way to reach out to young people. While these groups have various goals—safer streets, better schools, improved health, a cleaner environment—they have a powerful tool in common. Jürgen Griesbeck is building a worldwide network of citizen organizations that use football as a tool for social change, helping them to find new partners, and opening up the resources and recognition of the professional football industry and the broader public.

Jürgen’s global network brings dozens of organizations together using “football” with the football industry, governments, foundations, and other citizen organizations (COs), to leverage their work and enhance their ability to serve society. Its multi-purpose uses, availability, and strong emotional element make streetfootball a powerful unifier for all players in society and is a way to engage the business and social sectors.

By connecting carefully selected COs that use football as a tool for social change in a variety of fields, such as HIV prevention, environmental protection, integration of immigrants, peacebuilding, or gender equality, Jürgen enables them to exchange best practices and form a basis for collaboration on a global scale. More than a mere network, his organization, streetfootballworld, links its members with other COs in their fields and with local governments and foundations. He matches them with corporations, such as Nike, and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and channels new financial and professional resources into the social sector while also increasing social awareness and changing the policy of the FIFA and the football industry. Jürgen facilitates events like the global streetfootball festival, which he founded to change the self-perception and identity of participants and that of the public. He also brings youth from all over the world involved in football for social change together, both online and offline, to form a global community.

As Jürgen adds more members to the global network, he builds a united movement around football as a powerful instrument to improve the efficiency of citizen organizations and increases their ability to reach and impact millions of children.