How Nafas empowers Egypt's at-risk youth to reach for the sky through football

At Asmarat Youth Centre in south-east Cairo’s Al Mokattam district, 19-year-old Abdelrahman Yasser – known as Koko – is looking sweaty, dishevelled, and grinning from ear to ear after completing a kickboxing training session.

He stops by a football pitch to take a look at a group of young kids during practice and is immediately greeted and embraced by Mohamed Khedr Baydoun and Karim Hosny, the two coaches running the session.

The practice is one of many conducted over the past four months in Cairo, where children between the ages of 14 and 16 are training hard to be selected to represent Team Egypt at the Street Child World Cup in Qatar in October.

Koko was one of the lucky chosen ones that made the team that competed for Egypt in the Russia 2018 edition of the tournament, which has been held every four years on the sidelines of the Fifa World Cup since 2010.

Organised by Street Child United, a UK charity headquartered in London, the event came to life 12 years ago with the mission “to tackle the widespread stigma street-connected children face and raise awareness and understanding of their situation, so they are protected, respected and supported to realise their fullest potential”.

Egypt participated in the tournament for the first time in Brazil 2014 after Hosny learned about the initiative. He set his heart on forming a team from Cairo, his home city.

With the help of a small group of friends and colleagues, they all volunteered their time to work with local NGOs that house at-risk youth with previous experience of homelessness. They put together training sessions before selecting a team of nine boys that made the trip to Rio de Janeiro.

By the start of 2015, Hosny had co-founded a social enterprise called Nafas in