For those of you who have not been able to get a full grasp on what exactly it is I am doing here (aside from fleeing the US for some fun in the sun), here is a bit more about the goals of the program and what last week (a typical week) in the program looked like for me! The main group that I am responsible for is a team called the Estrellas Juniors, comprised of 10-20 girls (depending on the day), all between the ages of 11 and 14. The Estrellas are a part of the larger program, called Futbol Sin Fronteras (Soccer Without Borders), which is made up of 4 separate teams that both work individually and collectively. The emphasis for the program is to use soccer as a mechanism to bring about positive change, especially for young girls in an extremely impoverished and vulnerable community. The goal is to create a unique opportunity for girls to play the sport they love, while developing important life qualities, working towards goals together as a team, and serving a positive and important role in the community. We work with the girls on a daily basis, Tuesday through Saturday, and then work to fundraise for the program on Monday nights.

Last week we ran practice for the girls on Tuesday and Saturday. Here we worked with the girls on their technical skills, but concentrated on team building activities within the game of soccer. We worked on sportsmanship concepts, trying to emphasize the qualities that you need to have as a team in order to be successful. A lot of these girls come from very broken families, where they have an immense amount of responsibility put on them in order to survive as a family, but where the idea of working together productively to achieve a common goal is not always demonstrated by their father or mother. We chose to concentrate on this element of their lives because it is something that through soccer, we hope can have an impact on their livelihood.

            In our team activities for last week, we first worked on a reflection of their recently finished season, where each of the girls on the older teams had to pair up with a girl from the younger teams and share their favorite moment, their most challenging moment, the thing they are most proud of, and their most prominent goal for next season. This was a great chance for the older girls to step up and serve as role models as they led the conversation with the younger players. It also helped them bring attention to the most extreme highs and lows of the season, as well as recognize how they reacted to each. We then followed up later in the week with a “Charla” (or chat/lecture), where we taught them about positive relationships – both friendships and significant others. We went through a presentation of characteristics of a healthy relationship, in addition to signs of an unhealthy relationship. We finished the chat with an exercise where the girls all spoke about things like the qualities that they value most in a friend, a time in life when a they really needed support and which friend provided that for them, as well as a time in which they had an argument or disagreed with a friend and how they were able to overcome that obstacle together. Because we are aware of the many broken relationships that these children have, even at such a young age, we tried to steer clear of personal discussions in front of the entire group about the unhealthy relationships that we taught about.

            This week for team activities we will be working on a mural that was originally supposed to go on the big wall at our field, but has been turned down by the Mayor of our town as he things it will draw too much attention to the girls playing football and he seems afraid of the community’s response to that. Like I said, a whole different world right?! Last week we had the girls come up with designs for the wall in our home (which is also the site for team activities) that we are painting. The wall is divided up into 3 sections, the first for the 2 teams called the Mariposas (Butterflies), the second for FSF (the program as a whole), and the third for the final 2 teams called the Estrellas (Stars). We scanned the designs that we selected and, as leaders, traced them on the wall from a projector. I even somehow got my Mariposa design selected for the wall, despite my inability to draw a straight line without the aid of a ruler! Yesterday we had the girls come over and start the painting. Take a look at what we've done!