A Dream to Play Futbol
Futbol (soccer in the U.S. and Canada) is the most popular sport in the world! If you ask children at our centers in Colombia and Rwanda what their favorite sport is, they will say “Futbol!” They dream of playing on a professional team one day!
Bringing a soccer program to Mission Life’s child centers has been a dream in the making for founder and CEO, Angel Galvis.
Soccer Life, a structured sports program, that makes part of the development initiatives at the Mission Life’s centers. This program provides a positive, healthy and productive after school activity that not only teaches kids the rules of the game but it also gives them valuable life skills.
Achieve a Better Quality of Life
Statistics show us that a large percentage of children between 7 and 18 years old in Colombia are using drugs. This gives us a clear and real picture of the need for a structured sport to occupy children in a positive activity. The impact of adding Soccer Life to our child center programs will be of a great magnitude since it is focused on working with socially disadvantaged populations and the most excluded in marginal areas of these countries. It will give them the capacity to become social agents and achieve a better quality of life.
Outside the physical health benefits, sports are vehicles to foster cultural inclusion and create opportunities for students in the U.S. to help and connect with children at our centers.
In partnership with a local organizations and schools in the United States, Mission Life establishes partnerships through Service Learning Project, fundraising activity, short-term mission trips, for students to be involved and interact with the the Soccer Life programs, and provided equipment and resources to reach children in Colombia through sports.
Skills for Decision Making
In addition to athletic training, Soccer Life helps with the positive development of their minds and bodies, leading to higher self confidence, well-being and self esteem. (https://thesportjournal.org/article/effects-of-early-sport-participation-on-self-esteem-and-happiness/)
Our kids at the child centers will have another tool to come into a safe environment to practice soccer and learn Christian values and principles.
Sport participation studies show that “early sport involvement can affect adolescents’ happiness and mental health as they become adults,” Jewitt et al. (16)(https://thesportjournal.org/article/effects-of-early-sport-participation-on-self-esteem-and-happiness/)
And we believe it will lead them to find purpose and to be productive citizens.
Mission and Vision of Program
The vision for Soccer Life is to be a well-established sports training school in our Child Centers, starting with Nueva Colombia, Cartago, and any other partnership formed thereafter.
The mission is to provide the children in each of Mission Life Child Centers the opportunity to discover their athletic talents by providing them with a soccer training school that seeks to create in the youth habits based on discipline, effort, and family values as an extension to the Mission Life development programs.
The Children
Soccer Life will be part of the after school program at the child centers, as one of the tools to reach more children and youth for Jesus. Children, adolescents, and young people, men and women between the ages of 7 and 18 at risk, victims of discrimination and/or violence from low social strata in Cartago, Colombia, starting with 40 children.
