They play football together, but they also take many experiences with them for the rest of their lives. The football holiday camps organized by the DFB Egidius Braun Foundation are in full swing. Around 1,000 young people aged 13 to 15 are taking part in one of the 17 football holiday camps this year. The ball is also rolling again at the Hennef sports school. The camps are not competitive sports-oriented training camps. In addition to various activities on the field, the young people also go on excursions and deal with social issues. The program is once again varied. In addition to workshops on the topics of anti-Semitism and depression, participants also visited Bayer 04 Leverkusen and met Adel Tawil and Toni Schumacher.
a look behind the scenes
The 60 participants of the first of three camps held at the Hennef Sports School had the opportunity to meet Simon Rolfes. Rolfes gave the 13- to 15-year-olds a glimpse behind the facade of the current German champion and DFB Cup winner.
Who was his best opponent? “Lionel Messi, he was simply inseparable from the ball.” What goals has Bayer 04 set for the coming years? “We want to be among the top four in Germany on a permanent basis and among the top 16 in Europe. We also want to bring more players from our own youth team into the professional team.” Who were his best teammates? “I could name many, but I’ll limit myself to Dimitar Berbatov, Bernd Schneider, Michael Ballack and Philipp Lahm.” At the end of the conversation, things got more profound. One of the participants wanted to know what values Bayer 04 stands for. And Rolfes didn’t have to think long: “Of course for diversity, as the composition of our professional team shows. But also for respect, down-to-earthness, fairness and good cooperation. As a professional club, we are very aware of our social responsibility. We would like to become even more involved in the region than we have done so far. That is also an important concern for us.”
Exciting dialogue on values with Tawil and Schumacher
A dialogue on values with prominent support has already taken place. Musician Adel Tawil (45) and former national player Toni Schumacher (70) entered into an exciting discussion with the participants. The workshop was organized by the GermanDream initiative. What are values anyway? What significance do they have? Why are they fundamental to our coexistence?
Toni Schumacher spoke very personally about the values his parents gave him. “My mother said the following to me: You have to stick to two things in life. You have to be honest and you have to be hardworking,” explained Schumacher. He reported that the value of honesty in particular caused him great problems at times: “Because I wrote a book and was totally honest in it and criticized a few things, I was kicked out of 1. FC Cologne and the national team. That was bitter because two years later we became world champions and I probably would have been there. But things turned out differently and new doors opened for me. Today I am proud that I stayed true to myself. I would do it again and again.”
Adel Tawil described his path into music and why values played a fundamental role here too: “I was approached in a club and asked if I wanted to be part of the band ‘The Boyz’. In the end, I took the step – and never regretted it. We were suddenly stars in Germany overnight. I had to learn to deal with it first. It wasn’t easy. That made the values that my parents gave me all the more important for me.” Tawil continued: “For me, the statement ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’ is still the most important guideline to this day. I have experienced many ups and downs in my life. Today I can say that I am happy because I can do things that I enjoy and that are important to me. I gave everything for my big dream. And it worked.”
More on the subject:
All information about the foundation’s holiday camp can be found here.
Text: DFB Foundation Egidius Braun
