Eight year old Diyan sells bracelets for children in Lebanon

What did you do when you were eight years old? Diyan Ramos is selling bracelets so children in Lebanon can play football. ”I saw the movie Pelé and in the movie there was a lot of poor children that couldn’t play football so I felt that I wanted to help children play”, he says.

Eight year old Diyan loves football and wants every child to be able to play football just like he does. He’s at Heden this week and sells bracelets and the money that it brings goes to a football project in Lebanon. The project is operated by the organization War Child but it’s Diyan himself that came up with the idea with the bracelets.

”It just came to me in my head”, he says.

Diyan lives in Stockholm and plays football as often as he can. He’s named his projekt ’Believe in your dream’ and he agrees that it’s unusual for an eight year old to do a thing like this.

”I don’t know why I’m so devoted to this but I just really hopes that it can be possible for all children to play football”, he says.

Diyans mother Bekes says that it isn’t the first project like this that he’s been involved in.

”Last year he collected clothes and football shoes that weighed över 300 kilo and it was sent to street children in Uganda. And now he does this with the bracelets. He use to say that these children have survived war but they still have war inside them but that can change with football. When he feels down or is irritated it’s football that makes him feel better again. He wants the same to happen with these children”, she says.

Linnea Åberg is from the organization War Child and describes the specific project in Lebanon. 

”We’re building football pitches so that the children can play there. Mostly it’s for syrian refugees but also for children from Palestine and Lebanon so it’s also about getting these children to play with each other and have fun together. Therefore it’s also project about integration”, she says.

How has this week at Heden been for you?

”We’ve been getting a really good response, people has been so positive and they especially appreciate that it’s a child that does this in order to help other children”, she says.