Following Lionel Messi’s recent visit to Qatar as Ooredoo’s new global brand ambassador, Ooredoo has launched Play for Dreams (www.playfordreams.com) - a portal dedicated to creating, capturing and continuing the moments that enrich people’s lives.

The portal will store and feature examples of how Ooredoo helps make dreams come true and stimulates human growth with a number of proposed initiatives, which will be announced later this year.

Ooredoo has launched the portal with a series of short films, capturing the moment when it teamed up with the Leo Messi Foundation to bring dreams to life for a special group of children from across the globe.

Nineteen children had come to Doha to meet their idol, Messi, and Ooredoo caught their initial surprise and experiences on video before, during and after their meetings to ensure that these were experiences that would last forever and more than just once-in-a-lifetime moments. The short films are now being posted online for the first time.

“Young people should be given life chances to learn and find purpose in their lives - to have the opportunity to grow and fulfil their potential. Making dreams come true for these young children is one small but important part of bringing this vision to life,” said HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani, chairman of Ooredoo. “With Messi on board, we recognised the opportunity we had to bring these children’s dreams to life. Now, with Play for Dreams, we want to show that we are committed to making this happen.”

Among the children to visit Qatar was Ali, an Iraqi child who acted in a short movie showcased at the Dubai International Film Festival and Cannes. The film depicts how Ali dreams to become a professional footballer but is told that he has to stop due to a disability. Like many other children, Ali was affected by instability in his country and now has only one leg.

When bulldozers came to demolish her family home in Palestine over a year ago, Salha - another of the children to visit Qatar - turned to her imagination and authored an award-winning short story that outlined a dream in which she travelled with her flying lamb “Hantoush” to Spain to play with Messi.

The children who visited Qatar also included Walid (Tunisia), Abdelmoumene (Algeria), Shalhan (Maldives), Emir and Zola (Indonesia), Hawre (Iraq), Mohamed (Oman), Salman (Kuwait) and others. Play for Dreams will be regularly updated to tell each of their stories.

“I want to encourage children across the world to be positive and live for the future,” said Messi. “They have the most vivid imagination and dreams, but only on rare occasions do these dreams come true. Working with Ooredoo, I am delighted to be part of something that can help make this happen.”