By Geva Telem

It is not common to encounter a group of friends filled with mutual love who dedicate most of their spare time, taking action for the benefit of others. In the recent years, an NGO (non-governmental organization)
of mutual help is active within Hapoel Tel-Aviv supporters - "Red Workers".
This NGO is defined as a mutual help community within Hapoel Tel-Aviv supporters.

The founders of this NGO are veteran Hapoel Tel-Aviv supporters that aim to help inside the whole Hapoel Tel-Aviv supporters.

After a short browse through the internet web site of "Red Workers", one can learn about the good-will that is contagious and that warm and contacts with supporters from different countries from all over Europe with same ideology, who come and find the red workers community as a fitting one for them.

Asaf Eyal and Samir from Sachnin Supporters

The NGO was established by Ronen Malhan, Roy Sinai and Asaf Eyal at the end of year 2005 and it main activities are in finding work places for young Hapoel supporters, providing means of transportation to Hapoel games, help in homework, and many more subjects that have relation to education against racism and violence.

The NGO has created many contacts abroad with similar ideological supporter groups throughout Europe and especially with St. Pauli supporter groups.

Asaf Eyal, one of the founders of Red Workers, 32 years of age who works as a social worker in some poor neighborhoods and a very red Hapoel Tel-Aviv supporter explained :
"It all started in the 2004/5 season, after a big choreography we prepared for the Tel-Aviv derby game. Our big banner wrote "laborers of the world unite!" and the initiative of this came from the founders of the NGO. This sentence was written in honor of the "Hapoel" ideology and the coming back of all of us to those important values of socialism and mutual help. Many European supporters saw this banner in the internet and were very curios about this thing. After a while we got an official invitation to the anti-racism tournament in St. Pauli. They were amazed by the fact that there could be such supporters in the state of Israel. They had an idea about Israeli people who we proved to be wrong. They thought that Israel is all about racism, fascism and nationalism, and we showed them that we represent a different point of view. 10 of us went to the anti racism tournament where we found many fellow supporters from all of Europe, sharing the same values and ideas. Two of these 10 eventually established the Red Workers NGO. While in St. Pauli, we saw their NGO "FANLADEN" which is active for 20 years now. It is very big and strong and we try to learn as much as we can from this NGO. They are funded from their municipality, their football club and from the German football federation. We wish to be able to reach their level of activity someday. If we had their financial abilities, we could have established our own "Red Workers home" where we could have made educational activities, but we still are very short of funds to arrange this, as things are right now."

Sachnin's crowd in a mutual production with Hapoel

Asaf Eyal adds : "Our most productive activity so far was finding work places for young supporters. So far we were able to find work places for 200 young supporters of Hapoel Tel-Aviv, giving them a chance to work for the season ticket they bought, and giving them the opportunity to earn money in a clean and positive way, prevent them from wandering aimlessly in the streets."

Eran Nissan, 28 years of age, is another Red Workers activist : "We have already courses in German language and cinema studies, to enrich the knowledge of our community, but without funding, we have no place to conduct these courses. Our most important goal right now, is to find a home for Red Workers activities."

Asaf Eyal adds : "Because we do not have a geographical place to work in, most of our efforts in helping supporters with their homework, for example, are taking place in our forum on the internet. We have several Hapoel supporters who are students and teachers who help with answering questions of supporters who are in need of help with homework. We wish we had an actual class that those could come to, this is our big wish."

Sachnin and Hapoel supporters before a friendly game

"Recently we had started a new initiative- helping supporters arrive to Hapoel Tel-Aviv home games. It all depends on the good will of fellow supporters who are willing to take along with them fellow supporters to the games. So far we have 20 supporters who are willing to take along with them supporters who have no means of getting to the games. We hope that this list will be much bigger. The aim of this initiative is to bring as much supporters to the games as possible, and with this, to make new friendships and to make supporters close to each other on this basis. One certain young supporter recently told me that he made a season ticket thanks to this initiative of ours. Now that he can be sure he would reach all games, he paid happily for the season ticket. This is a very good success and it is an example for more things to come.

The total media exposure that Red Workers receives is minimal and this has to change as well. We need to be better known to bigger populations in order to grow and be able to carry out all our planned activities."

Eran Nissan added : "There are many supporters interested in taking part in this initiative, I believe that with more media exposure we will be able to enlarge this project."

In a few weeks, a big group of 15 St. Pauli supporters that are in touch with Red Workers, will arrive in Tel Aviv.

"When we were at the antiracism tournament at St. Pauli, we made many contacts with a vast number of supporter groups that share same ideology and social points of view. Since the first tournament, Hapoel supporters keep participating every year in the tournament with all other friends from Europe. Omonia Nicosia supporters are another example for a very good friendship we have. They have been here last season, and next month we will visit them at Nicosia, Cyprus. They have a desire to establish a similar NGO like Red Workers, and we are happy to assist them anyway we can. Throughout the season we have guests in Hapoel Tel-Aviv games, ,most of the from St. Pauli, but there are many more attending Hapoel games home and away. They are all thrilled by the fact that they get to meet very different Israeli people who represent ideology and beliefs like they hold. They come here to learn from us, and we, naturally learn from them as well. In a few weeks, a group of 15 St. Pauli supporters will arrive in Tel Aviv and we will host them here at their visit. There will be many mutual activities with them, one of them is a football tournament that will be consisted of six teams and a team of St. Pauli supporters:

A team of women supporters

A team of Red Workers

A team of Ultras Hapoel

A team of Sachnin supporters

A team of Darfur refugees

United Against Racism

Red Workers has many plans for the near and far future as well, as Asaf Eyal says : "Beyond the mutual help between supporters we do, we also collect used cloths from all Hapoel supporters and give them away to people who are in need of them. A few weeks ago we managed to collect a very good amount of bags filled with clothing before one of Hapoel's home games, and I gave them away in the neighborhood I work at. Whoever asked me about these clothing, I said they were an humble contribution of Hapoel Tel-Aviv supporters.

Lately we have started to work upon a very important project aiding disabled supporters in Hapoel games. For example, we are planning to make it possible for blind Hapoel supporters to enjoy the games, with headsets with a full broadcast of the game, given by a fellow Hapoel supporter.

Comradeship forum in english- press here

Photos by Geva Telem and Red-Workers website