Wales football fans support children’s project in Albania

Nation.Cymru staff

As Wales’s women’s team faced Albania in the World Cup play offs, the supporters’ charity Gôl Cymru! has kicked back into action too in the Balkans.

Members of Gôl Cymru! joined the One Heart Children’s Foundation in the northern city of Shkodër to help launch a new project to improve the lives of children.

The generous fans donated €1000 to improve the lives of children in the traditional capital of Albania, where the Wales team enjoyed a 1 – 0 victory over their hosts in the first leg of the play-off games. The second leg will be played at Llanelli on Tuesday 13 October.

One Heart Children’s Foundation helps children in need and tries to prevent them being abandoned in the first place. It offers support to mothers with parenting skills and children currently in institutions, and aims to reintegrate children back into their families or foster families when the time comes.

Thanking Gôl Cymru! for their support, Valbona Tula from the One Heart Foundation, said: “Your donation is very valuable in helping us provide school supplies and toys, and opportunities for the children to enjoy outdoor activities. It will help our new grandmother and children programme where they visit the children each week and do educational activities with them. These activities help build the children’s skills and capabilities, so they grow and learn, and are key to their development.”

Gôl Cymru! supports children’s charities every time Wales play an international match, home and away. Since the first visit to Azerbaijan in 2002 it has worked in more than 50 countries from China to Moldova to the USA.

This is not the first time Gôl Cymru! has been active in Albania. In 2013, on their drive to Macedonia, the supporters bought video equipment to allow children who had witnessed violence to tell their own stories to try to come to terms with what they had seen. In 2018 they visited and made a donation to the ‘Help The Life Centre’ in Tirana which provides education and therapy for children and young adults with autism and additional needs.

Helen Lucitt from Gôl Cymru! said: “It’s great that we now support good causes when the women’s team plays. We can’t think of a better charity than the One Heart Children’s Foundation which is trying to heal families by bringing different generations together and offering guidance and support to lone parents. To see the work they do is quite humbling and we wish them all the very best with this new project in Shkodër.”

Find out more via: www.gol.wales or www.gol.cymru
You can donate here: www.Justgiving.com/gol

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