Nine million refugee children and youth live day in and day out in harsh camps, not knowing when they'll go home, if ever. Contrast that with the excitement of playing a football match, the joy of diving to save a ball, or the confidence you get from knowing you are strong, and fast, and part of a team that sometimes wins - and sometimes loses. These are some of the lessons you learn on a field of play. Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says that every child has the right to a childhood through play. We, as founding partners of the ninemillion.org campaign, wholeheartedly agree.


The story of the ninemillion.org ball

As a founding partner of the ninemillion.org campaign, Nike paired its belief in the power of sport to create positive social change in young people's lives with a commitment to bringing refugee youth access to sport. Nike tasked a team of designers to create a high-performance, multi-sport ball that can withstand the harsh surface conditions of a refugee camp. The result combined Nike performance innovation with sustainability--24% of the total rubber content in the outer cover contains Nike Grind recycled rubber materials from footwear manufacturing. The ball was designed to be used for a variety of sports and activities for children who otherwise do not have access to sport equipment. To help bring the joy of sport to refugee youth, Nike donated 40,000 ninemillion.org balls to UNHCR to benefit refugee youth worldwide.


Employee stories

This fall, Nike launched a ninemillion.org T-shirt sale competition among its US Nike Town stores. The employees of the store that sold most T-shirts were eligible for an essay contest on what ninemillion.org means to them. Selected for her outstanding essay, Ms. Trudi Hill from Nike Town Atlanta, won a special VIP tour and reception at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on November 7, 2006.

Ms. Hill says of her experience, "Although I was aware of the importance of fundraising campaigns such as ninemillion.org, it wasn’t until my trip to the United Nations that its impact and the challenges that face the world in the 21st century truly sank in... It is clear that grassroots movements like ninemillion.org will continue to be a key to educating the world’s inhabitants about how they can make a positive difference."

Ms. Hill’s winning essay focused on a ten-year old boy who visited Nike Town Atlanta with his mother to buy himself a birthday present. Inspired by the ninemillion.org display, he decided that instead of buying for himself, he would buy ninemillion.org T-shirts to distribute among his friends and family.

ninemillion.org is about creating an emotional connection between the youth living in communities throughout the world with those living in refugee camps worldwide. It hopes to empower youth to take action and change the lives of other children who are currently living as refugees. Stories like this one - of an inspired boy from Atlanta who is helping to spread ninemillion.org’s powerful message - tell us that the campaign is succeeding in doing just that.