Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Soccer

Hey, here's one for you combination political junkies and soccer fans. (You know who you are.) Ilya Shapiro, at TCS Daily, looks at an Israeli soccer club that's providing mentoring for kids of all stripes in Israel: "Jews, Arabs, Bedouins, and Druze." Shapiro says the non-profit project combines mentoring, tutoring, soccer training, and interaction with professional athletes:

The goal is to leverage the club's professional achievements and youthful love of sport to transform the lives of the underprivileged and promote understanding among different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic groups. Sports are thus a means of developing healthy young citizens, able and motivated to become contributing members of society.
From having watched the World Cup for the first time this year, and seeing how engaged the world at large is in soccer, I think this is a great idea, and from Shapiro's account, it's being very effective at helping underprivileged youth overcome their disadvantages (16,000 of them--girls too.) Go Team!!