Soccer Without Borders: How the world's most popular sport is helping displaced refugee youth find h

The struggle, Gucciardi explains, is sustaining a level of resources and funding that encourages a “continuation” of coaching staff and teachers that make a real impact in a young person’s life. As of this year, 28 per cent of SWB’s coaches are alumni, and Gucciardi says they have been invaluable for inspiring refugee youth to get involved in local soccer programs.

 

“When we consider newcomer communities and refugee populations, they are groups that have received more attention in recent years and has become a more polarizing issue in the US,” Gucciardi continues, “In general, it’s a community that’s really under-resourced and that leads to social isolation.

 

“When you think about education and this moment where we find ourselves confronted with the Great Resignation across sectors, and this big revolving door of teachers, principals, and school staff, it becomes difficult to build a culture and to have a vision for what a space can look like for young people.

 

“Outreach is therefore really important,” Gucciardi goes on, “whether through partnerships with schools, or working with alumni in communities, or building transport links so young people can access local programs which encourage children to get involved in soccer. Having a coach or teacher that provides that stability encourages children to keep coming back and creates an environment where they can feel at home and helps young people to succeed". 

Originally founded in 2007 in partnership with Oakland International School, in California, SWB’s programs have expanded to multiple locations across the US, including the east-coast city of Baltimore, in Maryland.  Its role is to “turn the soccer field into a living classroom”, explains Mary Connor, SWB’s co-founder and executive director, who insists soccer can “create a home” for people who have experienced displacement.

 

“We see the potential for soccer to go beyond the sport itself,” she continued, “and become a learning environment and be used as a space to address community issues and interpersonal exploration for children to reach their potential. The sector evolved a lot since our inception and in a big part that’s due to Laureus. There’s now a lot of organizations using soccer as a tool for social development.”

 

Of those seeking asylum in the US, Connor says there are many who suffer from some form of trauma. She cites the 40-year struggle faced by youth living in Afghanistan, for example, which she believes has become “more acute” ever since the withdrawal of US troops from the country last year.

Speaking ahead of a free, three-part series of workshops, which explore the role soccer supports the resettlement of newcomer Afghan youth, in partnership with Laureus (Feb 23 – March 16), Connor says that there’s “a growing body of evidence that intentionally designed sports spaces can act as a healing space for children who have experienced trauma”.

“When there is an acute refugee displacement crisis, people immediately think of food, shelter, and clothing,” she continues. “While there are many organizations in America which already support in those areas, what we’re advocating for is the space where children can have fun and experience community. And sport is becoming an important part of this mosaic of services.

“Laureus has been on the front-edge of bringing trauma-informed coaching into sport, especially in the US. There are concrete ways soccer can make itself more accessible and be a leader and find a way to allow people who have lost their identity to find a space that feels like home. That’s what we aim to achieve.”three-part series workshops".

In order to achieve SWB’s goals, Gucciardi emphasizes the need for a collaborative approach at soccer’s grassroots, while open dialogue is essential between the education sector and organizations like SWB to give refugee youth a clear roadmap for their futures.

He also cites Laureus’ Sport For Good Cities programmes, both in the US and  internationally as examples of how a bottom-up grassroots approach can help focus on local partners and funders on the needs of individual communities. This is reflective of SWB’s values, he says, rather than taking a top-down, blanket approach to the refugee crisis.

“The importance of an organization like Laureus is its ability to take people out of their specific silo and collaborate ideas with others who are doing similar work and learn from one another through resource sharing,” Gucciardi says. “Considering the magnitude of the challenge and suffering for families either living in Afghanistan, or waiting for asylum in America, we have a responsibility to share our lessons with other groups in other geographies interested in building a soccer-based program that supports newcomer youth and to help expand their thinking, too.”