The Laureus Sport for Good Foundation is to support a second community sports-based programme in Rio de Janeiro to help disadvantaged young people.

Edwin Moses, Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, and fellow Laureus Academy Member Emerson Fittipaldi teamed up in Rio to announce that Bola Pra Frente Institute, a football focused project in the poor community of Muquico, Guadalupe, is to receive funding from global sports charity Laureus.

Established by Brazilian football star Jorginho, who played in the 1994 Brazil World Cup winning team, Bola Pra Frente Institute uses football to encourage youngsters to ‘be a star’ on the field and in family life, school and community.

Tomorrow Moses and Fittipaldi are to visit another sports project, Luta Pela Paz in Complexo da Maré, which the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation has supported since 2004.

Double Olympic champion Edwin Moses said: “With the 2013 and 2014 Laureus World Sports Awards being held in Rio de Janeiro, ahead of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we are keen to expand our involvement in Brazil. Laureus is much more than an Awards Ceremony. As our Patron Nelson Mandela has said ‘sport has the power to change the world and change people’s lives. Since we began, Laureus has raised over €55 million for projects which have improved the lives of more than one-and-a-half million young people.”

Luta Pela Paz (Fight for Peace) is based in Complexo da Maré, a favela where there has been more than a decade of territorial drug wars. Children and adolescents are often involved in crime, gangs and gunviolence. The project uses boxing and martial arts combined with education and personal development to realise the potential of young people in the community to keep them off the streets and away from trouble and allow the chance of a better future.

Edwin Moses and Emerson Fittipaldi are members of the Laureus World Sports Academy, a unique association of the greatest living sports legends, who volunteer their time to support the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation which works to improve the lives of young people around the world.

The mission of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation is to use sport as the means to combat some of the world’s toughest social challenges facing young people today such as juvenile crime, gangs, HIV/AIDS, discrimination, lack of education and social exclusion. Laureus currently supports more than 100 community sports projects in 34 countries which work towards this goal.

(Laureus Sport for Good Foundation Press Release)