“The Homeless World Cup made me change the course of my life”
|Evgeniy Adamenko played for Ukraine at the Homeless World Cup in Gothenburg in 2004.
"The Homeless World Cup is one of thE brightest events in my life”
The top scorer at the Homeless World Cup in 2004 was Ukraine’s Evgeniy Adamenko.
Evgeniy Adamenko from Team Ukraine 2004 won the "Golden Shoe" award for top scorer at the Gothenburg 2004 Homeless World Cup. He scored amazing 53 goals in the tournament.
"The Homeless World Cup is one of the brightest events in my life. It made me change the course of my life completely and to define the goals in my life and find new ways to achieve what I want. To win the 'Golden Shoe' Trophy was a real victory for me, maybe the most important, but not the last one."
At 20 years old, Evgeniy Adamenko found himself in a crisis familiar to many young people in Ukraine. No job, nowhere to go, no vision for his life. He lived in permanent conflict with his family, stayed at friend's flats, started to sleep rough in the streets of Odessa and became a vendor of the Ukrainian street paper The Way Home.
Evgeniy notes that participation in the Homeless World Cup helped him to break the circle of self-isolation he had been living in for years. It gave him a sense of participation in something great, something global. This inspired the faith that life is full of chances and he can take the opportunities. It raised his self-esteem and brought back respect from his family and friends.
"The Homeless World Cup is one of the brightest events in my life. It made me change the course of my life completely and to define the goals in my life and find new ways to achieve what I want."
Nowadays Evgeniy is a young man full of energy and motivation to move further in his life. He has started to live at home again. He aims to become a University graduate and studies at the National University Kiev. And the Gothenburg 2004 Homeless World Cup inspired him to become a member of a professional football team in the Ukrainian regional league.
Find out more about Way Home and how they’re supporting people in Ukraine.