OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL STORIES
This is not a frivolous matter. Young men familiar with war and violence from their home countries experience poverty and struggle here in the Piedmont. Without support, we risk losing youth.
But what else did newcomers share? At the retreat, the usual doleful list of problems were discussed — poor housing, bad jobs, poor medical help, shortages of services and funding. These were and continue to be treated as individual and family problems, not community issues that could or should be discussed and tackled on the community level. But without proper tools for community-building, how could newcomer communities come together?
At the United Dashain Festival, a first for our area, Nepalese and Bhutanese communities gathered to celebrate with food and on the soccer field. Narayan Khadka, one of the authors of grant application,
had run a conflict resolution workshop using soccer for refugee and immigrant kids at Doris Henderson
Newcomers School. Based on its success, the success of United Dashain, and conversations with different refugee and immigrant groups, we thought an international soccer league could be a good way to get groups to talk to one another, improve community relations, and build a better Greensboro.
National, regional and local tournaments organized by refugee and immigrant communities bring visitors to the area, generate business and contribute to the Piedmont’s cultural and sports life, yet few American leaders or sports organizations are in touch with what’s going on.
Official story: FAIH Board members greet guests
Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
When events and opportunities present themselves, government, non-profits, faith-based organizations, education and business need to be ready to step up and step in. If they have little to no experience working outside of their official protacols and zones of cultural comfort, they will continue to miss, time and again, opportunities to reach out and connect to newcomers.
FAIH - TISL meeting at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, with Tom Hayes (then FAIH Board President) on the far left, Mohamed Eltahir, David Fraccaro, the Executive Director of FAIH, Karen Mujali, and Krishna Khadka.
TISL Tournament 1, March 2012
Soccer leaders are also community leaders. Each has had experience working with youth, managing teams, insuring fair play and a level playing field. All believe soccer is the basis of better community relations among newcomer groups and local government.
Pizza break. Community leaders and coaches often cover transportation, food, entry fees, and equipment so that young men can play, because many newcomers come from families that can’t afford the costs of local league play ($100 a player, or about $1500 per team).
BAAT Soccer Tournament
First time: Karen-Bhutanese combined team from Winston-Salem.
City Meetings
Soccer meeting organized by Yamile Nazar of Greensboro’s Human
Relations Department held at the Melvin Municipal (City Hall) Building
in downtown Greensboro. Yamile invited Parks and Recreation
representatives to meet TISL leaders.
Oct 13, 2012 Collaborative Meeting: Greensboro Human Relations Department, Greensboro Parks and Recreation, FaithAction, Center for Creative Leadership and Triad International Soccer
Moussa Issafou (right) is adjunct faculty member in Critical Writing and Composition at NCAT, and representative of the Togo Hawks.
Update: 10/22/2012: Triad International Soccer League becomes Greensboro International Soccer League of the Triad.
Inaugural tournament Nov 10 and 11 at Hester Park.
Opening ceremony: 10 AM
First games: 11 AM
Update: Nov 10 -11 Inaugural Tournament
(City of Greensboro announces new soccer league)
(Soccer league Facebook page)
Triad refugee and immigrant community members have formed an international soccer league. They’ve gotten a boost from FaithAction International House and solid support from Greensboro’s Human Relations Department and Department of Parks and Recreation. After a year of negotiations and collaborative planning, we are creating a league all of Greensboro can cheer for.
(Soccer league Facebook page)
Triad refugee and immigrant community members have formed an international soccer league. They’ve gotten a boost from FaithAction International House and solid support from Greensboro’s Human Relations Department and Department of Parks and Recreation. After a year of negotiations and collaborative planning, we are creating a league all of Greensboro can cheer for.
Introduction
WHEN REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS sit down together and discuss common
problems — housing,
schools, employment, education, kids, police, security, health — it’s a
good start to finding solutions. A painful Piedmont problem has been
how to make this happen. Unfamiliar American customs —
announcing conferences, summits, and community meetings through email,
formal organizations, refugee services — have continued to be
ineffective. So why not try soccer, whose customs and rules are very
well known to newcomers? This is not a frivolous matter. Young men familiar with war and violence from their home countries experience poverty and struggle here in the Piedmont. Without support, we risk losing youth.
Soccer Origins (1)
AT THE ANNUAL RETREAT OF REFUGEE SERVICE PROVIDERS, I met two new friends during a meal. One man was from Iraq and the other was from Vietnam. As the conversation progressed, they shared their war experiences. Of course, their journeys were different—the Iraqi man had recently resettled here, the Vietnamese man, actually a Montagnard, had been here for two decades. But they shared some common experiences. They could exchange detailed pointers about the AK47, the universal weapon of choice for guerillas, insurgents, freedom-fighters and terrorists. The Chinese-made version was cheap to buy but not as sturdy as one made in Russia. They both agreed the AK was something you could really count on.But what else did newcomers share? At the retreat, the usual doleful list of problems were discussed — poor housing, bad jobs, poor medical help, shortages of services and funding. These were and continue to be treated as individual and family problems, not community issues that could or should be discussed and tackled on the community level. But without proper tools for community-building, how could newcomer communities come together?
The shirt says it all. United Dashain was made possible by a grant from the
Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro. FaithAction acted as fiscal sponsor.
Soccer Origins (2)
Big Sudanese national tournament held at Northeast Park (Gibsonville).
This year they will book 100 rooms for teams and another 100 for visitors.
This is big money — maybe about time the City paid attention to the
impact and contributions refugees and immigrants make to Greensboro?
This year they will book 100 rooms for teams and another 100 for visitors.
This is big money — maybe about time the City paid attention to the
impact and contributions refugees and immigrants make to Greensboro?
Karen teams (from Burma). Even relatively new populations have soccer teams.
National, regional and local tournaments organized by refugee and immigrant communities bring visitors to the area, generate business and contribute to the Piedmont’s cultural and sports life, yet few American leaders or sports organizations are in touch with what’s going on.
FaithAction Multicultural Thanksgiving 2011
Official and Unofficial Stories
Official and Unofficial Stories
Official story: Welcome to all by Tom Hayes, FAIH Board President.
Unofficial story: Seated in the rear are refugee and immigrant soccer coaches and
managers eager to meet Yamile Nazar, sitting in the center table, representing
Greensboro’s Human Relations Department.
Official story: A big crowd and lots of newcomers
Unofficial story: The first conversations about international soccer started here.
Official story: The Ntibonera family performing great music.
Unofficial story: The guys in the group play soccer.
Official story: FaithAction spends a lot of time and energy putting together Multicultural Thanksgiving.
Unofficial story: It is well worth it if it continues to generate community building projects like TISL. The problem many organizations have is how to listen to unofficial stories — the ones that matter. Community building and outreach cannot be one-shot deals. Unless there are ample opportunities for newcomers and mainstream Americans to connect, personal relationships, trust and potential collaborative projects cannot arise.
Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
When events and opportunities present themselves, government, non-profits, faith-based organizations, education and business need to be ready to step up and step in. If they have little to no experience working outside of their official protacols and zones of cultural comfort, they will continue to miss, time and again, opportunities to reach out and connect to newcomers.
Triad International Soccer League (TISL) Meetings, 2011-2012
Early organizational meetings took place at Greensboro Public Library branches, downtown Greensboro, Panera Bread on West Wendover and at FaithAction International House.
Meeting at Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit on Yanceyville Street (Greensboro).
Esther Idassi, Co-Chair of the Refugee-Immigrant Network of Guilford (RING) and Sister Gretchen.
FAIH - TISL meeting at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro with Bhutanese champions of the 2011 United Dashain tournament.
TISL is not a top-down, American-controlled organization. It is a bottom-up, grassroots, community-based and community driven effort by refugee and immigrant men who say,
“We know our culture, we know our people”. In October, TISL became GISLT, Greensboro Soccer League of the Triad.
TISL Tournament 1, March 2012
Trophies and awards came from the pocket of one of the TISL leaders.
Sudan Candle
India
KCNC Karen
Montagnard United
Opening game ceremony
Sudan v Nepal
KCNC Karen v India
Play hard, but play fair: The soccer field is the one place newcomers can fully control and organize.
TISL Tournament 2, July 2012
Award ceremonies presided by Omer Omer, Executive Director of African Services Coalition.
TISL Has Inspired More Soccer Tournaments and International Play
City Meetings
Dr Sherrill Hayes of UNCG’s Conflict and Peace Studies (rear center) also attended.
Among TISL leaders’ biggest concerns were practice fields. Practice fields allow teams to regularly meet, work out, and build unity.
With so few fields available, refugees and immigrants get chased off by other teams or players. After American teams, American youth soccer and the busy Latino leagues, it’s tough to find reliable places for newcomer teams to practice.
Human Relations and Parks and Rec were able to find good practice space.
Oct 13, 2012 Collaborative Meeting: Greensboro Human Relations Department, Greensboro Parks and Recreation, FaithAction, Center for Creative Leadership and Triad International Soccer
Yamile Nazar of Greensboro’s Human Relations Department worked patiently to champion the cause of better relations between the City and newcomer communities and toiled behind the scenes to bring much needed resources to the table.
Narayan Khadka, President of Triad International Soccer League, worked with TISL officers to contact team captains, players and managers from more than a dozen countries.
David Fraccaro, Executive Director of FaithAction International House, has lent organizational support, meeting space, and funds that have helped connect newcomers to the City.
Janet is part of the training team from Center for Creative Leadership. CCL training involving all significant parties has been a way to cement relationships and insure long-term commitment and sustainability for international soccer.
Kassenge Habtamu is part of the training team from Center for Creative Leadership
About twenty TISL members from Asian, Middle East and African countries attended. As Daniel Ho Le (seated, front) has stated, past efforts to organize international play and build bridges among newcomer communities had failed, but the meetings with Human Relations and Parks and Recreation have achieved major breakthroughs. Like other men in refugee and immigrant communities, Daniel is well respected because he knows the game and contributes his time counseling and encouraging young men to get involved.
Rethinking leadership based on social identity: Who am I? and...
Given values, chosen values and core values represented in a three concentric circles.
Breaking down barriers...
...to get to the heart of the matter of community-building.
Abdul Wahhab (right) is a former attorney from Sudan pursuing an advanced degree in Conflict Resolution.
Anthony Majok, one of the ‘Lost Boys’, speaks up.
Sunil Pradhan, a coach and referee, representing Bhutanese American Association of the Triad.
Abdelazzim Elsheik represents the Sudan Candle.
Down to business: Yamile leads detailed technical discussion about how TISL organization and Parks and Recreation soccer rules could be combined to create a stronger league.
Why Does Soccer Matter?
Inaugural tournament Nov 10 and 11 at Hester Park.
Opening ceremony: 10 AM
First games: 11 AM
Update: Nov 10 -11 Inaugural Tournament
The unofficial story behind many of these photos are young men who
are scholars, aspiring students and sons who are trying their best to
help their families succeed in Greensboro. Many work. Some are young men who have
had encounters with the police and legal system. Some are young men who need
guidance from older men from their community or from those equally
passionate about soccer. The unofficial story is that these photographs show the faces of Greensboro’s future.
The city has rapidly become multicultural and multi-ethnic, destined to be permanently changed by new populations. City government and its leaders can either plan for diversity or be overwhelmed by social problems that arise from a failure to act, unable to benefit from the fresh voices, opinions, talents and ideas newcomers bring to the area. As we look at a struggling regional economy that will be here for years to come, Greensboro needs all the help it can get.
