By Sports Reporter/Doha


Qatar Football Association (QFA) and Qatar Shell’s Koora Time initiative has been honoured as the best Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Impact Initiative at the CSR Awards Qatar 2015, at a recent award ceremony in Doha.
Koora Time is a five-year sustainable initiative designed to improve the health and wellbeing of Qatar’s youth through football. The initiative facilitates access to additional hours of physical activity and more opportunities and spaces to play football. The flagship programme Il’Ab We’Yana provides each child with an additional 72 hours of physical activity over its 18-week duration.
This award adds to Koora Time’s many accolades which include recognition at the Sport Industry Awards 2014 for ‘Best Youth Development Initiative’, the AFC Dream of Asia Award in the area of social responsibility and the Dar Al Sharq CSR Award for Best Sports Initiative. Judges were impressed by findings published by an independent sports education research agency showing that the programme had significantly improved the Body Mass Index (BMI) rate of participants in the overweight category. The awards ceremony, which featured 20 companies from different sectors, competing to demonstrate how their CSR initiatives best bridged the gap between society and the business sector, was held under the patronage of the Ministry of Economy and Commerce.
“These are exciting times for us and our partner Qatar Shell. Since Koora Time’s inauguration in March 2013, we have witnessed some truly fantastic results. These national awards acknowledge just how much we can contribute to society and we hope others are inspired to follow suit,” said Hamad al-Kuwari, Director of Marketing at the QFA.
“The Koora Time initiative is part of QFA’s CSR strategy which aims to constantly leverage on its existing partnerships to educate the communities about the positive values of playing football and inspire the youth to play football.” He added.
“At Qatar Shell we are committed to supporting the Qatar National Vision 2030 by working with Qatari partners to create and deliver long-term contributions to society that generate measurable social impact,” said Mohammed AbuJbara, CSR Manager, Qatar Shell.