Welcome to our Badminton project for street children in Brazil!

More than 60 children living in the streets and slums of Gravatá, in the northeast of Brazil, participate at our project offering a better live through Badminton. In 2004 Badminton was a completely unknown sport in Gravatá, today we change for better the live of the children and adolescents that participate. With help coming from all over the world, the project offers daily practice of Badminton, at least one meal per day, basic school lessons, clothing and some participations in regional tournaments.
For more information contact Frank Düesberg at +55 84 8875-0910 or Skype frankgravata or e-mail frankgravata@uol.com.br
 

Would you like to sponsor a child? Euro 44 per month. This nourishes, clothes and gives lessons to a child. More

Home of Paulinho and Leo (and 6 more people) In front of the house A local street were our athletes live Future athletes

April 2009 - 1° Stage of the Badminton Championship of the Northeast of Brazil in Recife
After long month of training it was time for the first official championship of the year. Great results were produced, basically we won all the categories we participated (Singles and doubles Under 17, 15, 13 and 11, second in singles and first in the adult category). As always we had a lot of fun, we brought along food for everybody of the project and as a special reward everybody went to the beach on Sunday afternoon after the competition. So you can imagine a lot of happy and proud faces with mainly gold medals on their chests when they went home to their rather sad reality.

The next stage is to prepare for the fist national championship in the northeast of Brazil, in Natal from 11 to 14 of june 2009.
 

Full page report at the main Pernambuco newspaper Diário de Pernambuco on the 04 of april 2009 on our project.
With a picture of Ian, our youngest player (7 years, who won the Under 11 doubles category in Recife) on the front page, we got a full page report with pictures on our project. See below:
Sonho de badminton
Cidadania // Projeto difunde a prática da modalidade olímpica para cerca de 60 crianças do município de Gravatá
Ana Paula Santos // Diario
anapaula.pe@diariosassociados.com.br
Gravatá - Dia 28 de outubro de 2004. Esta data mudou a vida de José Paulo Pereira. Natural do município de Gravatá, distante 82 km do Recife, o garoto foi apresentando ao badminton, modalidade olímpica, mas pouco difundida no estado. A prática é rara na capital pernambucana, mas na pequena cidade do agreste esse esporte vem ganhando muitos adeptos. E o público alvo tem sido crianças e adolescentes das comunidades menos favorecidas (conhecida por Área Verde, onde se localizam as favelas Dois Irmãos e da Linha). Meninos que começaram como José Paulo, 21, que hoje já desempenha a função de instrutor do esporte. Read more

Selective for the Recife Championship
Before every great competition we have the hard job to choose the best out of the project to use the limited space in the transportation. See two videos at you tube showing a bit of our training: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyI5eA3_Xvs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVLE_sV_-y4
 

January 2009 - Christmas and New Years festivities
Like every year we managed to organize festivities for all the children who participated at our project during the year of 2008. Thanks to a private sponsorship we bought presents for every single one, we had a wonderful lunch, cooked by some of the mothers of our participants, of course we organized a championship and for the first time a painting contest. The winner was Karla, see the picture on the right.

November 208 - 3° Stage of the Badminton Championship of the Northeast of Brazil in Natal/Rio Grande do Norte.
Another great event with the highest technical level seen until now in the northeast of Brazil. Very strong players from Piauí made this championship very competitive. But again our players made their way, I suppose because our main advantage in Gravatá is our daily training.
Again it was another special moment for some of the players, like Henrique, who saw the sea for the first time in his life.
 

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Sepember 2008 - My Badminton Store
My Badminton Store is our newest sponsor! Thank you very much! See the webpage promoting our project in their website.

July 2008 - Clothes sponsored by Lions Club Berlin
Proudly we present the clothing sponsored by the Lions Club Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. Furthermore we offer now extra school lessons, english lessons and lunch on saturdays.

May 2008 - You tube
If you want to see some movies of our project and athletes just search for “Gravatá Badminton”. Be ready to see some really sad environment.

January 2008 - Christmas presents
Through voluntaries every participant received a present which he asked for in their letters. Further on it was Paulinhos birthday party and the goodbye of Maria do Carmo, director of the school.

Food packages sponsored by Greenfield
Just in time for Christmas Greenfield sponsored 140(!) “Cestas Básicas” food packages for the families of the participants!

November 2007: Visit of the Brasilian National Coachof Badminton Luis de França at our project
It was a great moment to receive Luis de França for a two days training at our facilities. He was very impressed by the level of the players and promised help. Since then many dream of being a National Coach...

November 2007: Sponsorship by the Lions Club Kurfürstendamm/Berlin
We are very happy to inform that the Lions Club will sponsor 5 participants during one year.

October 2007: Regional Natal
With the help of the EMBALA sponsor Leo and Paulinho could participate at the III Regional of this year in Natal/RN. Both won their categories, so now Leo and I are the only players in the Northeast in the Nacional A category.

June 2007: Embala Open of Gravatá - 30/06/2007
With the help of Greenfield we organized a little tournament.The boys and girls loved it, we had food, fun and nice medals. The winners took a “cesta básica” (basic food package) home to their families.

June 2007: 2° Stage of the Badminton Championship of the Northeast of Brazil in Teresina
Another great sucess in Teresina, even though we only managed to send 2 players. Leonardo won the main category and winning in Natal in November can be the second player after me to enter the National A Category. Paulinho was winning the finals of the B Category, but had to give up. Still we are very happy about the success! We received a special congratulation from Luiz de França, the National Badminton coach for the project and its success.

Mai 2007: A special thanks to my family for the general and financial support. For example they made a presentation at the Berlin Lions Club Kurfürstendamm possible witch looks very promising, they send me send me nets and shuttlecocks.

April 2007: 1° Stage of the Badminton Championship of the Northeast of Brazil in Recife
Another very successful participation, we won Under 11, 13, 19 and Vice Under 17 years. Our best player, Leonardo won against the best players from Recife and Piauí, only lost in the finals against the Pernambuco number 2. Anyway a huge success which proves that not only in the social area but sportive too we are on the right way. Thanks to all that made that trip possible.

February 2007: Very good news from Wilson Switzerland still supporting our project at one of the most important tournaments of the world, the SWISS OPEN. Who buys a new racket and leaves his old will get a discount and the old racket will be sent to us!

January 2007: Our project was accepted by the Kindermissionswerk "Die Sternsinger" under the projektnumber A 07 0212 001. Donations can be given to: Sparkasse Aachen, Accountnumber: 299, Banknumber: 390 500 00 , and, very important, the projectnumber A 07 0212 001. All donations will be sponsored by the Kindermissionswerk with 10% and sent to our account.

November 2006: 3° Stage of the Badminton Championship of the Northeast of Brazil in Natal/Rio Grande do Norte.
Unfortunately we didn´t find enough sponsors to participate at the 2º stage in Teresina/Piauí, but Natal again was a complete success: We won the following categories: Under 11 Boys, Under 13 Boys, Vice Under 15 Boys and Under 17 Boys.

November 2006: 2º BADMINTON OPEN OF GRAVATÁ
Celebrating two years of existence and success! Thanks to all the sponsors who made that possible. Very exiting matches, everybody showing maximum disposition and a lot of sweat. At the end hotdogs, softdrinks and a big birthday cake. A lot of happy faces!

July 2006 - Rodrigo is in the Brazilian National Team!
This is a dream come through. He qualified to play the Pan American Championship, unfortunately we found no sponsor to cover the trip expenses.

March 2005 - 1ª Stage of the Badminton Championship of the Northeast of Brazil in Recife / Pernambuco.
The participation of the children of our project was a complete success. We won the following categories: Under 11 Boys, Under 13 Boys, Vice Under 15 Boys, Under 17 Boys, Adults B and third place Under 15 girls. Thanks to all who helped us! As the local Federation informed, this will guarantee the two best of each category at the national tournament in Curitiba, South Brazil. Just imagine what this means for a child living in a favela in complete poverty!

January 2005 - WILSON BADMINTON SWITZERLAND is supporting our project.
Thomas Schärer, Team- & PR-Manager Wilson Badminton, gave me personally 100 raquets, shuttlecocks, T-shirts and DVD´s.

October 2004 - Start of the project.
Once per week in a badly illuminated gym Frank starts giving lessons to the first participants.

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