Baltimore's Soccer Without Borders...hooked up!

Imagine if you had to uproot and move to a new country. You don’t know anyone, you don’t speak the language very well, and, as if that's not enough, you have to go to a new high school. Coming to the United States as a refugee child poses many challenges. In Baltimore, as well as other places both nationally and internationally, Soccer Without Borders is using the soccer as a medium to “encourage healthy living while developing English-language abilities, teamwork, academic success, and cross-cultural skills”.

Soccer is an incredible sport: in every corner of the world the sport carries a passionate following. You can travel anywhere in the world and regardless of language or cultural barriers, as soon as a soccer ball is brought out, you instantly have a way to interact with the people around you. The students that are members of Soccer Without Borders in Baltimore originate from a multitude of countries. Baltimore's chapter includes students from Palestine, Eritrea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Palestine, Cameroon, South Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Guinea, among others. Although they shared the same challenges coming to America, most of students could not understand each other and many of them did not initially like each other either. However what they all shared was an incredible love for the sport of soccer- or “football” to them.

This is what soccer means in their lives:

C4BF recently stopped by SWB to size up and share cleats with members of the Baltimore team who needed a a pair for the start of the new season. It was great to see the just how universal and upbringing the sport of soccer can be. 



In other news, we are looking to continue to build our SWB connection by having a friendly little match. A C4BF vs. SWB soccer game is being scheduled for later this spring (Andres Camacho from C4BF is an Arsenal fan and has a couple things to settle with SWB's players who are Chelsea and Manchester United fans). "I guess Andres doesn't like winning" said Warshan, a sixteen year old from Iraq. Members of the greeNEWit office will also be joining in to help out the 5 person C4BF team. Should be quite a match! We'll let you know more as we do.