Refugee football kicks off
Maryan Egal watches as her three children chase after a football at McLeod’s Park in central Auckland.
Egal came to Aotearoa as a refugee from Somalia, and doesn’t have the money to enrol her kids in sports clubs.
But the UMMA Trust’s holiday football programme is open to the children of refugees free of charge. Running out of Waitemata Football Club, it gives them the chance to play and socialise, all while getting fit and learning new skills.
‘‘The benefit is the Somali community children getting to know each other, building up the relationships for the community,’’ Egal said. ‘‘They often come from different schools, so they don’t see each other often. At Waitemata¯ soccer, they see, talk and play with each other very well.’’
Egal said having opportunities like this had helped her family adjust to life in Aotearoa. ‘‘We can’t afford to put them at the club, so it’s good, and the kids they like to come, because we don’t take them to other clubs, so it’s affordable for us as well. They enjoy it a lot, they like playing soccer.’’
The club draws refugee families who have come from a range of countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran,
Lebanon and Ethiopia.
Bashir Abdulahi, who is 17 years old, was at the club on Tuesday. ‘‘It just means inclusion, getting more social, meeting people from different countries. We play soccer, we do drills first, we start with warmups, then we get into the games once we’ve warmed up.’’
UMMA Trust spokeswoman Anne Lee said refugee families often couldn’t afford recreational activities for their children. ‘‘When refugees arrive the whole family has to do everything that if you lived in a country you’d be doing over 20 years. They have to find somewhere to live straight away . . . the parents have got to learn English, the children have to study. Normally in the holidays the children don’t do anything, because they simply don’t have the money.’’
Lee said sports and holiday programmes were expensive and UMMA Trust wanted to subsidise a programme with a skill level associated with it. ‘‘It’s building sports skills which is a fabulous thing for refugee kids, who have been in refugee camps and haven’t had the chance to play sport or do anything, and haven’t been well nourished.’’
This is Public Interest Journalism funded by New Zealand on Air.