Qatar Football Association secretary general Mansour al-Ansari, SC assistant secretary general for Tournament Affairs Nasser al-Khater, SC CSR senior manager Isabel Gultresa and Aspire Academy’s head of Events & Partnerships Vasiliki Topalidou with the winners of the 2015 Educational Challenge.

By Sports Reporter/Doha


The 2015 educational challenge for Qatar-based educational institutions initiated by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) culminated with campaigns titled ‘It Pays’ and ‘Health’ by Qatar University and Park House English School adjudged the best in the university and high school sections respectively.
A judges’ panel comprising Qatar Football Association secretary general Mansour al-Ansari, SC assistant secretary general for Tournament Affairs Nasser al-Khater, SC CSR senior manager Isabel Gultresa and Aspire Academy’s head of Events & Partnerships Vasiliki Topalidou arrived at the decision after evaluating the presentations made by the two winners as well as that of two other shortlisted institutions in the high school category – Diet Movement by English Modern School, Al Khor, and Health is Wealth by Qatar Leadership Academy, Al Khor.
The winners won scholarships worth QAR 20,000 each to implement their campaigns.
The Qatar Leadership Academy won the second place while the English Modern School were rewarded with the First Place Aspiring Award.
This year’s challenge included 25 teams from high schools and universities that were asked to design and implement campaigns to raise awareness and bring about behaviour change on the theme of ‘Healthy Living Through Sports’.
The SC will consider implementing innovative ideas from the campaigns of the winners, shortlisted finalists as well as all 25 participating institutions and create social awareness about healthy living.
Following the award ceremony, al-Khater told www.sc.qa, “Healthy living through sport is one of the main social and human legacies Qatar is putting in place in connection with the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Initiatives such as these can help the nation achieve this objective in the lead up to and following the 2022 World Cup. Significantly, other stakeholders such as Aspire, Qatar Olympic Committee, Ministry of Youth and Sports and Qatar Football Association are all taking this seriously and working hand in hand with the SC towards achieving this national goal.”   
QFA’s al-Ansari said: “The initiative helps to create awareness through sport and football about health in general among the young people living in Qatar. Sport and football can become an important platform for young people to improve their health and fitness in addition to them being great hobbies and a source of joy and fun. QFA have done a lot to promote football as a leisure pursuit setting up amateur leagues and community leagues. Our motto is football is for all people and initiatives such as this go a long way in spreading awareness about using football as a leisure activity to achieve broader nation building goals.”
This is the third consecutive year the SC has launched an educational challenge to encourage students to develop marketing campaigns to address issues like healthy living through sports, women’s participation in sports or to promote sustainability as the organisation brings in holistic progress across human, social, economic and infrastructural spheres as Qatar gears up to host 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The educational challenge was conducted with the assistance of SC’s educational partner, Josoor Institute, with EdVenture Partners working as SC’s delivery partner.