I was able to participate in some of the greatest
experiences of my life this past week. I, along with a number of my colleagues
and close friends, was able to attend a couple of football-development programs
in some favelas in Curitiba, as well as in the neighboring city of Pinhais.
Here we provided the vast amount of underprivileged children with a variety of
healthy food, soccer clothing and equipment, and many other things, not to
mention our entire afternoon dedicated to playing with them. These will definitely
be moments in my life that I will never forget and will always cherish.
But honestly… Was it enough to really make a serious impact
on their lives? The optimist in me is screaming “YES!” but the healthy skeptic
in me keeps asking “But how?” I know this is quite the mood killer, but hear me
out.
Before I go any further I simply want to point out that I am
an advocate of programs such as LionsRaw and Cheer for Peace (the two
organizations that I had the privilege to work with) and would recommend supporting
and participating in them whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Being
able to make these children and families happy for even one day constitutes a
success in my books. Their escape from poverty may not have been achieved, but
there was still definitely success. However, there are definitely more
effective ways to create lasting success and make a lasting effect on these
children.
Although I firmly believe sports can potentially be a very
effective tool in the education of a variety of life skills, I also realize the
fact that this goal needs to be well planned and well implemented depending on
the specific requirements of each child. As D. Parnell et al. explains, many
football-orientated interventions (such as the ones that I accompanied) cannot adequately
prove any true effectiveness in achieving goals such as the increasing levels
of participation in sports and general healthy behaviour. This means that
although there are countless football organizations aimed at increasing the quality
of life of people all around the world, many may not achieve their grandiose ambitions
due to the ways in which they go about their programs. Many programs claim to
make their players better citizens as a whole, which is an impossible ambition
through the use of sports alone.
Taking a step back, let me explain the first project that I
worked with.
I went to Pinhais to work with LionsRaw, which was an
organized soccer camp consisting of multiple coaches that help train and
develop the football skills children of less affluent circumstances in the
favelas in Pinhais and Curitiba. Here I was able to participate in some of the
drills, play a game against the older kids in the group (aged 12-15) and help distribute
some football clothes and equipment to some of the children. These drills
seemed to be well organized and well executed, focussing on different age
groups and many different football skills.
There was one thing that really stuck out to me with this
project though… The main coach of the program whose name unfortunately I don’t remember
was obviously a well-educated man in the world of football (apparently once
being a professional goalie). He was
quite simply the heart and soul of this program. The way that the children
treated this man with such respect and love showed me that this program definitely
has the potential to make an impact on these children outside of the world of
football, as well.
Now let me explain my second experience working with a
football development program here in Brasil.
To be quite honest, the majority of my contribution to the
event (held by the Cheer for Peace organization) was to entertain as many kids
as possible, distribute jerseys, and, by the end of it, essentially be a piggy-back
machine able to fit a maximum of 12 kids at one time. However, every time that I
looked around I would see the many group organizers either helping children
operate the bike that fuelled the blender to make juice, organizing more equipment
to give away, passing a soccer ball within a group, or participating in a
multitude of other activities with the kids and their families.
Now back to the article…
D. Parnell et al. continues to state that in order to
maximize the potential of sport-development programs, they first have to
develop and utilize effective working practices that specifically relate to the
individuals who are involved in the direct delivery of the programmes. This is precisely
what I experienced here in the favelas, as well. The main coach in the LionsRaw
project knew exactly what he was doing right from the get go. He obviously had
specific goals with each group of children (attending to individual children
when they needed it), implemented these goals effectively with the help of his
knowledgeable coaches, and in turn was even able to create a very powerful
relationship with the children that he coached.
The second project that I attended did not have such a
figure, however. That being said, I do also believe that this program was very
effective in creating a very fun and enjoyable atmosphere for the children, as
well as providing them with some essential soccer equipment. We didn’t merely
provide them with a ball to play with, either. We showed them how to play with
it, how to play with others with it, how to enjoy participation, etc. This is
where I notice a glimmer of hope in the effectiveness of football and
development programs. NO, this program was not a technical camp focused on the
development of specific skills and techniques, but it was absolutely an
opportunity to be an example of how to kick, pass, and control a football even
if this wasn’t the main intention. For example, I was juggling with two boys
aged 8 and 10 and showed them a couple tricks that I have in my limited repertoire.
Half an hour later, I noticed that these same two boys were continuously
practicing the tricks off to the side of the event, and were getting pretty
good at it too! I am absolutely not going to take full credit for their skills
and abilities, but I do not think it is much of a stretch to say that these
kids were practicing these tricks more so after my example.
Finally, I believe when all is said and done, the most
important thing in terms of the effectiveness of sport-development programs such
as these truly revolves around the people creating the goals of the program and
the ways in which they implement them. Stay simple and do not try to find the
immediate cure is my best advice. The fact that the man from LionsRaw was able
to create such a strong relationship with this vast amount of kids, as well as
the way in which he did so (simple goals, well organized, no wild ambitions),
makes me conclude that this project was the most successful at creating the possibility
of having lasting effects on the lives of the children involved in the program
outside of the world of football.
“Cheer for Peace”
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