“It just began as a hobby of mine and then it exploded...”

Lee Hawkins originally founded the ASA Foundation 23 years ago as a sports-based youth empowerment academy for Indonesian street kids; a charitable organisation that uses the power of sport and football to run social impact initiatives that improve the health, security, well-being and learning skills of at-risk youth in developing countries.

“It's been a wonderful journey over the last 23 years,” Hawkins tells Inside FIFA. “I actually set up ASA Foundation as a hobby of mine in Jakarta back in 2001. I used to be a trainer at Southampton Football Club and I was also doing a lot of soft skills education training.

"We were running coaching clinics for boys and girls. We started working with street kids in central Jakarta, and then around that time, the country director of Church World Service (CWS), which is an international NGO, said: 'Hey Lee, let’s set up a football program together.' His son was actually captain of my elite side, and we were working with a lot of foundation kids at the time, and I said. 'Okay, let’s run a health and nutrition program with your street kids',” he says of the foundation’s beginnings.

It has been a long journey for Hawkins who has since managed to get countless more programmes up and running and to have a positive impact on the lives of so many people. Under his leadership, the ASA Foundation has grown into a sports-based education and empowerment NGO which now acts as a trusted local implementing partner for long-term strategic collaborators worldwide. One of these collaborators is the FIFA Foundation.

“We’ve been working with the FIFA Foundation since 2018 on a number of programmes ranging from conflict resolution, prevention of violence against women and girls, health and nutrition, hygiene and sanitation which was kind of a reaction to the COVID-19 virus,” describes the creative innovator.

The most recent programme to receive support from the FIFA Foundation aims to use the power of football to empower disabled young people. But this initiative is about more than just football, it is about building confidence and promoting teamwork and inclusion. Every Sunday, 100 inspiring young athletes – 50 boys and 50 girls – meet in South Jakarta, Indonesia to receive lessons on health, well-being, life skills and gender equality.

“We just set up the very first disabilities program and it’s awesome," said Hawkins. "We’ve got 100 kids there, 50 boys, 50 girls. Gender equality is one of our main pillars. We always focus every programme, minimum of 50% on female participation. It’s a brilliant programme and it’s having massive impact in the communities,” says Hawkins of the initiatives.

Training sessions are scheduled for one and a half hours between 8:00 and 9:30 – the coolest part of the day, which is hugely important for children with disabilities so that they don’t suffer in the heat.

“Before we’ve even started that session, during the week we will plan the training session, which workstations that we’re going to deliver and set up the structure of the training program for that Sunday,” says the ASA Founder whose career in international development stretches back more than 20 years.

“We'll do a fun warming up, which is an aerobics session with music. Afterwards we’ll split them into groups which are subgroups geared towards age, gender and their type of disability – very important! All the drills are geared towards FUN, they’re intuitive and they deliver key education messages.

"We also run small-sided games which are geared towards life skills, so promoting teamwork, communication, fair play, leadership, organisation skills. It’s like a circuit of workstations so groups will move around and like I said each training drill will be geared to those youth which have a certain type of disability.”

Additional motivation comes from the fact that the kids each get a training shirt that they get to keep after the end of the program, adds a grinning Hawkins.

The current program, which is being supported by the FIFA Foundation, is focused on using football as a tool for teaching children with disabilities confidence, self-esteem, teamwork and leadership qualities that they can use off the pitch too.

“We’re focusing on disabilities and boys and girls, the program fosters a sense of inclusion and equality by encouraging the boys and girls to participate equally. And this obviously breaks down gender barriers and promotes a more inclusive society. And we’ve got the parents there to support us as well.

“And it’s great to see the kids there participating in this physical activity, this football, which socially interacts them. Some of the kids don’t do much physical activities in their school as well. Our programme contributes significantly to their overall well-being and self-esteem and their physical development. I think football is kind of a unique language.”

Hawkins emphasises how important the support of the FIFA Foundation is to the running of the programme and how it goes far beyond simple financial resources.

“The support is crucial to the success and sustainability of our programmes. Obviously, they provide the financial resources, but obviously having FIFA Foundation involved in our program gives ASA Foundation and the program massive credibility and visibility to initiate and help and inspire our communities to engage and support the program.

"We’ve got the massive banners up at the school [SLBN 12 Jakarta] where we run our programme and all the kids and the parents see that we’re supported by FIFA Foundation. That gives us massive credibility and it gives the kids real sort of excitement that they’re part of the FIFA Foundation initiative and the FIFA Foundation story. It’s fantastic that this programme can create positive social change in those communities and schools.”

Thanks to a range of monitoring and evaluation programmes, Hawkins and his team are able to find out exactly how much football and other types of sports have changed the lives of participants for the good. That includes measuring the impact on participants on a large scale and surveying parents.

“If we can identify talented youth, then we can also create opportunities for them at an elite level through sport and also scholarships as well. We would love to do that with the FIFA Foundation kids, with the disabilities kids to offer those opportunities to send them overseas and especially those ones that have been recruited by the national teams in the elite competitions. We’ve got some very talented athletes in that group of 100 students,” he says.

“Two of our disability’s kids have gone on to be national athletes and they’ve received gold medals in Sweden through a programme there. We’re trying to open more opportunities for them. We will be recommending more talented athletes to the National Sports Federation there. That’s kind of an underlying objective of our programs. Our first objective is to use sport to educate, empower, build the capacity of our teachers, our community coaches and our youth, obviously.”