A few days after the end of the Bundesliga season, the Foals visited several social initiatives in Mönchengladbach to take a look at their work.
Borussia players visited six different locations in Mönchengladbach, including a primary school, the Hephata-Werkstätten, a local hospital and Café Pflaster, in order to take a look at their work and gain new experiences.
Tobias Sippel, Lukas Ullrich, Simon Walde, Alassane Plea, Nathan Ngoumou and Shio Fukuda for example visited the Hephata-Werkstätten, a place of work for people with disabilities, and built children’s bicycles or soldered headsets together with the workers. “We received a great welcome,” said Sippel. “I was very impressed at how quickly and effectively things were done there, and how it all moved like clockwork. I tip my hat to this project and I’m sure that the people here will make the move into the world of work.”
Support and face-to-face conversations
Julian Weigl, Fabio Chiarodia and Franck Honorat visited Café Pflaster, which is aimed at socially disadvantaged people, for example those who are unhoused or for whom the threat of homelessness is very real, people suffering from addiction or struggling with mental health and those living under financial or social poverty. As with at all the places they visited, the players took the time to sign autographs and take photos.
Rocco Reitz, Grant-Leon Ranos, Jonas Omlin and Moritz Nicolas visited a local hospital. Omlin and Nicolas greeted young people in the children’s ward, while Reitz and Ranos assisted nurses with serving lunches in the geriatric ward. The chance to engage in face-to-face conversations with people was a key focus of the Foals' visits to these various locations throughout the day. For example, a 99-year-old patient told the current Foals stories from years gone by at the club.
Florian Neuhaus was keen to get stuck into a training session held by Bolzplatzliga. The street football league is a project organised by the Mönchengladbach Bildungspark for young people aged between 12 and 17. Each month, the teams have the chance to put their skills to the test and earn points for their team on pitches across Mönchengladbach. Neuhaus himself ended up joining one of the teams.
Robin Hack and Luca Netz held an autograph session at Mülfort-Dohr primary school, with Christoph Kramer and Marvin Friedrich also in attendance. At Holt primary school, which has worked with Borussia in establishing the “Football Meets Culture” initiative, they took part in a football tournament for pupils in first and second grade.
“We have been working very well together with all of these social initiatives – for many years, in some cases,” said Markus Frieben, head of sustainability and social responsibility at Borussia. “Our visits to these places serve as a recognition and an appreciation of the great work being done there.”
