Guillermo Rolando, global executive director at Foundation Futbol Mas, appreciated the space for innovation in education. The Schools Program complements the objectives of attitudinal and cross-sections of the Mineduc, working together with physical education teachers and the rest of the educational community. “The focus is on school coexistence and working towards that by using sport as strategy. Hopefully this can be transformed to a public policy,” he says.

The first version of the “Congress of Innovation in Public Challenges” was carried out successfully. There, experts of different subjects, national and international, presented on the challenges facing the current management models in the public sphere, in various subjects.

In this context, Foundation Futbol Mas was part of one of the panelsshowing how with their Schools Program have managed to be recognized as one of the 100 best educational innovations global this year, by the prestigious institution Finnish HundrED.

The purpose of this international conference, organized by the Lab Innovation Public (LIP) of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and carried out at the premises of the Centro de extensión UC, was to generate a space for gathering, reflection and sharing experiences of successful cases and scalable in public management.

Hence the global executive director of Futbol Mas, Guillermo Rolandoexplained the satisfaction of being part of this first version of the event and continued to emphasize the back bone of the Schools Program, school coexistence.

We feel very happy but also very challenged as well. We were one of the proposals selected this year as part of the innovations in public policy. In these 16 years, we have continuously been innovating and the last time one of our most important settings in programmatic terms, has been within the physical education class with our Schools Program. The focus is on school coexistence and working towards that by using sport as strategy. Hopefully this can be transformed into a public policy.

Guillermo Rolando, global executive director, Foundation Futbol Mas.

Rolando was part of the panel of initiatives of social innovation alongside Paula de Solminihac, executive director of Cloud Laband Karina Gomez, manager of the commercial School of Entrepreneurship Digital Background Hope.

But what has this educational innovation been like? Foundation Futbol Mas base its socio-sports methodology of the Sport for Development strategy, seeking to position the sport as a social tool of profound changes in the communities.

In the case of schools, the foundation adapted their method to the national curriculum issued by the Ministry of Education, complementing the objectives of attitudinal and cross-cutting, working side by side with physical education teachersFurthermore, within the Schools Program, Futbol Mas generate spaces of reflection and self-care focused on teams of teachers to improve the levels of mental health in teachers and assistants education.

According to the area of studies of Foundation Futbol Mas, which evaluated the Schools Program in 2023, the percentage of children who have a level of optimal wellness increased by 6.7% percentage points between the start and end of the programme, from 19.6% to 26.3%, which asserts that there was an improvement in the general well-being of children benefiting from being part of Futbol Mas. Moreover, 80% of teachers and officials of the schools where the foundation worked strongly agree or agree with that Futbol Mas is a contribution to the school coexistence. This reflects the fact that providing spaces for self-care allows for the creation of a climate of healthy coexistence.

Pictures from the day: