About a month ago LA SCORES Program Director Amy Fleischauer and AmeriCorps Vista Dre De La Peza took part in a sports and culture exchange with Relief International to Amman, Jordan. The exchange allowed five American coaches to participate in visiting Jordan and organizing and running sports camps and trainings for both youth and adults. The exchange lasted for about two and half weeks and took the coaches all over Jordan, visiting local community centers, living with host families, meeting and building relationships with local youth and dedicated adults and sharing values, ideals, personalities and experiences through sport. It was the back end of an exchange that had started months ago when five coaches from Jordan came to LA and visited local programs, including LA SCORES.
The group that went consisted of five coaches, Amy and Dre, John-a past LA SCORES volunteer and soccer player, Sarah-a volleyball coach working with Special Olympics in Maryland and Gil-a coach/teacher/writer from Wildwood School in LA. The entire exchange was run, organized and basically held together by our fearless leader and guide Emily Carwell. With the five coaches working as the legs of the exchange, running trainings and camps on the ground, Emily was the hands who put it all together and Ahmed--our translator--was the head, piecing all our experiences together, putting them into context and enlightening us with his wealth of knowledge.
During the exchange we ran full days of coach clinics-- focusing on soccer, athletics and volleyball-- during which we taught basic skills, rules, techniques and games they can implement with their own teams. We also ran day camps with kids from local community centers and took part in an all girls summer camp at the King's Academy school in Amman. We visited local NGO's --Relief International and Right to Play-- met their staff and spoke about how they function. We also had a chance to visit different areas of Jordan including refugee camps, historical ruins and sites and local neighborhoods.
By the time our few weeks were over it was hard to take in everything that had happened. We had established bonds and friendships with each other, the children we coached and played with, the coaches we taught and worked beside and the families who took us in. Beyond this, a light had been shown upon a country in an area of the world, that in the US, is shrouded in darkness, mystery and fear. We had met the people, traveled the country and, for a short time, adopted the culture. The exchange made powerfully clear the insight an open mind and experience can bring you and the power of sport to connect people around the world.
The bridge between cultures will not be built with iron and steel. It will be built on thousands of fields, with hundreds of teams, communicating through sports.
Please read on in the next few weeks as we detail more of our trip and experiences!
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