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Bayer Leverkusen help train football coaches at camp for Syrian refugees

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Bayer Leverkusen are training young coaches at a refugee camp in Jordan, giving them the chance to learn from experts at the Bundesliga club.

Leverkusen, along with Queens Park Rangers, Basel, Austria Vienna and Werder Bremen, are members of the Football Club Social Alliance (FCSA), founded in 2007 to "make a sustainable contribution to the education of young people."

Last week, the FCSA started a project at Azraq refugee camp, with Basel and Leverkusen training 39 coaches who will help children escaping from the conflict to enjoy playing football.

One of the coaches, Yasseir, told Rheinische Post he was taking part in the programme to "make the children laugh and take away their fears."

"Football unifies people of every age, every religion and every sex," Leverkusen director of fans Meinolf Sprink said.

Speaking to ESPN FC, he added that the training programme consisted of two individual modules, and there would also be a week-long course in November.

The coaches were selected in cooperation with non-governmental organisations working at the camp, which houses around 55,000 men, women and children, on the basis of "age, sex, nationality and sporting qualifications."

"Our work here means a lot to the people," Peter Quast, who trained the coaches and usually works as a Leverkusen's under-13 coach, said.

"The everyday life is rather joyless and our programme thus makes sense and is welcome. It offers them a perspective to train children here in the camp and, hopefully, in their home one day."

Magdalena Schiefer, responsible for coaching the women, said: "They and the children will take a lot from it."