Changing Lives One Football at a Time
By Izella Fajardo
In our journalism class last Tuesday Coach Rudy and Lex Maravilla of the Homeless World Cup team talked to us about what they do and the hardships they face to send a team of eight former street children to other countries to compete in the HWC. Then there are the issues of making sure that the kids in the program do not backslide into their lives of drugs and violence. In the words of Coach Rudy: “The competition (HWC) is not the end point; it’s just the beginning.” Changing lives and making good citizens out of street children is a very tough and commendable job to undertake.
To be honest I had no clue about what the league and the team was about. I mean, I know of them because of tidbits from the news but apart from that, nada. I was really touched by what Coach Rudy was trying to achieve using football. It's incredible to think that football can really change lives, more than rehab and juvie. What hit me the most though was when Sir Rick mentioned that some of the players have never even slept on a bed before. I thought about how we take for granted things we have like a bed, pillows, cars, three square meals a day, and most importantly, a home. You can deny it, but I know that all of us have taken our homes for granted at one point or another. I know some people who say that they don't want to go home because their parents ‘suck’. Don't they realize that there are many unfortunate kids who don't even have parents to go home to?
I realized that society should really be more open to other avenues like this in the fight to lessen teenage delinquents on the streets. I think that sports clinics are more effective than forcing these young people into rehabs and the like. We'll never know if a kid has talent if we don't do something to make it manifest. I’m not saying that rehab is not important or something like that, but sometimes, all a kid really needs is a chance for him to find hope in the future again. And if by any chance, he finds that hope in playing football, then who are we to take it away from him?
Post a Comment