The Rice Project

During the last 5 years the Norwegian football club, Vestkysten Sportsklubb has supported and financed rice for several schools, dormitories and one orphanage in the outskirts of Mae Sot. As of January 2017 PlayOnside took over the responsibility of the delivery, so every month we fill the PlayOnside truck with footballs and rice, and take a weekend road trip into the jungle.

Access to enough and nutritious food has been a challenge in this area, and as rice is the staple food in the region, and consumed for every meal, it is essential for the children's education and individual growth and development Free school lunch is also a motivational factor for parents to send their children to school. PlayOnside delivers monthly 30 bags of rice, a total of 1.500 kilos to the Primary Schools Maw Kwee, and Gol La Hay,

Salitt, and to Safe Haven Orphanage

For us in PlayOnside the monthly "rice-trips" are a great opportunity to connect with schools and children living in remote areas, and when we visit the Safe Haven Orphanage, we take advantage of the this opportunity to have footballrelated activites and some fun games together with the children living there.

Football & Art Designing logos together with Kick-Start Art

We in PlayOnside always emphasize that football is only a tool, a methodology to reach other goals The PlayOnside program is as much an educational program as a football program, supplementing the traditional educational curriculum in the Migrant Learning Centers.

Another tool also functioning as an educational supplement is art.

Thus we teamed together with another NGO in Mae Sot called Kick-Start Art, to find out how we can work together to combine art and football together as an educational tool.

Studies show that art helps children understand other subjects much more clearly—from math and science, to language, arts and geography.

Early exposure to visual art, music, or drama promotes activity in the brain and nurtures inventiveness as it engages children in a process that aids in the development of self-esteem, self-discipline, cooperation, and selfmotivation.

As a first pilot project of many collaborative projects between KickStart Art and PlayOnside, we created individual logos for the different teams participating in the PlayOnside Rainy Season Tournament. The children at the different schools discussed what represented their team, and their school By being inspired by different logos from other football teams, the students together with Kick-Start Art first interpreted the meanings of the different logos, and then created their own After all the children had the chance to use their creativity and learning new drawing techniques, they chose one logo to represent their schools football team.

The logos where printed on the team’s uniforms, and the players were very excited to wear them for the Rainy Season Tournament. Overall, this was a great collective project combining art and football for educational purposes.