National Post (National Edition)
Immigrant teens fit in with soccer
NEW YORK PROGRAM HELPS KIDS INTEGRATE
On a blistering summer day in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, an English soccer coach gave a pep talk to a group of 14 players as they sat attentively on a knee-high wall.
Whether the message was getting through was open to debate; only a handful of the players arrayed before the coach, Jonathan Vaughan, spoke English as their first language.
Ahmed Mohamed, a 17-year old from Alexandria, Egypt, had joined the team only days earlier. In doing so, he became part of a group that included players from Benin and Egypt, Nigeria and Guinea, Bangladesh, Jamaica and Uzbekistan.
Mohamed joked that he had seen such ethnically diverse rosters at the elite levels of the game, where top clubs regularly scout and purchase the brightest talents from across the globe. But at the amateur level, a roster of similar diversity remains extremely rare.
On his new club, though, it is the norm. Mohamed’s team, Rooklyn International, has created its cosmopolitan mix by using soccer as a way to help young immigrants in New York City — newcomers, asylum-seekers and refugees — integrate with other teenagers who find themselves in a similar situation.
“At the end of the day, we are the same people,” said Md Ayub Nabi, 19, who moved to New York from Bangladesh five years ago and joined Rooklyn International despite having little experience with the game before he arrived in the United States. Since March, Rooklyn has attracted recruits from at least 10 nations. Last year, 53 players attended one or more Rooklyn practices or games; those players, ages 14-20, had roots in 15 countries and spoke 10 languages.
Elisha Aninye, a 19-year-old who moved to New York from Lagos, Nigeria, in November, 2015, said he joined Rooklyn’s program to “gain new skills and meet new lads.” Aninye was the captain of Rooklyn that day in the park, where he and his teammates wore matching yellow jerseys provided as part of a league organized by the New York Police Department.
Despite their wide-ranging backgrounds and their varied understanding of Vaughan’s instructions and mannerisms, Rooklyn looked very much like a unit. But the program’s roots stretch back to a time when Rooklyn the team was not even Rooklyn at all.
In the spring of 2008, Soccer Without Borders, an international organization with the same soccer-based integrative goals as Rooklyn, decided to set up a New York chapter through an agreement with the International Rescue Committee. Seeking a unifying thread for the children of the families it was resettling, the organizations arranged occasional volunteer-led pickup soccer games for the city’s immigrant youth, focusing on the social elements of the sport, rather than the competitive ones.
Players of varying abilities came and went, but by April, 2013, organizers began to see a shift in intentions of the immigrants who were coming to the program.
“They wanted to play in MLS, for Manchester United or Real Madrid,” said Prospero Herrera, Rook- lyn’s co-director and coach, referring to Major League Soccer. “We asked the players what they wanted to be in the future, and they said soccer players.”
The occasional pickup games soon became consistent, free weekend practices for the young players, as the program drafted a model aimed at improving participants’ soccer skills as well as their life skills.
In 2014, the organizers began holding regular weekday training sessions and entered the players in their first competitive tournament.
The Brooklyn International High School, an educational facility that looks to improve students’ English skills and help them adapt to American life, also partnered with the program.
“The kids come to me often and say, ‘ Where can I play outside of the school?’ ’’ said Paul Allen, the soccer coach at the Brooklyn International High School. “Unfortunately, in my experience, there are club teams all over New York, but some of them are really competitive, and for some there are costs involved.
“So the greatest thing is that here is another place for the kids to have organized athletics.”
The school’s focus is mirrored in the weekend training sessions that Herrera, 29, oversees in Brooklyn’s McLaughlin Park. Players are encouraged to introduce themselves in English to an ever-changing group, stating their name, age, home country, how long they have lived in New York and how long they have been playing soccer. Some find the task comfortable; others glance to teammates who may hold the words they seek.
In 2015, the New York program separated from Soccer Without Borders, which currently maintains year-round chapters in Boston, Baltimore, Greeley, Colo., and Oakland, Calif. A memorandum of understanding was drafted so that the International Rescue Committee’s New York office, where Herrera works, would oversee the program. With the input of players, coaches, staff members and graphic designers, the organizers began a rebranding process, eventually settling on the Rooklyn International Football Association.
For some of Rooklyn’s competitive matches last year, the roster was “between 65- and 75-per-cent refugees or asylees,” Herrera said. That percentage is likely to decrease this year, he added, as many players from the group are either too old to play in competitive games or have attended college.
“When I came here, many people helped me,” said Mohamed Condoe, 20, a former refugee from Guinea who played for Rooklyn last year. “Football helped me because my family do not speak much English.”
Condoe now works as a delivery person. While he is too old to play in competitive matches, he has tried to remain a part of the Rooklyn program.
Next year, with its agreement with the International Rescue Committee expiring, organizers intend to reach out to new groups that work with refugees, asylum-seekers and young immigrants.
Currently reliant on donations and the work of a handful of volunteers, Rooklyn’s organizers are also in the process of applying for non-profit status, which they hope will allow them to finance a part-time position to oversee the program’s expansion.
This change, Herrera said, could mean more practice sessions, the introduction of a girls team and joining a year-round recreational league.