It may not be the Nou Camp, but the charity arm of soccer giants Barcelona has been giving child refugees a shot at the beautiful game at their otherwise grim surroundings in Lesbos.
Organisers say the soccer training sessions at the refugee camp on the Greek island promote dialogue, respect and tolerance among the young participants, helping to ease stress and nurture friendships.
“We know we can influence them, we can help them to dream, we can show them the future,” said Jordi Cardoner, vice president of Barcelona and the Barca Foundation.
On Lesbos island, once one of the main gateways into Europe for refugees fleeing conflict, hundreds of minors have signed up to the Barca Soccer FutbolNet program since its implementation in July 2017.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees passed through Greece at the peak of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015 and 2016. The Greek gateway has largely shut, but up to 15,000 refugees remain in camps on outlying Greek islands in conditions decried as inhumane by many aid organisations.
FutbolNet training sessions last two hours and are held three times a week. The project employs coaches who are refugees themselves, and who have been granted asylum.
Mohammad Barbary is a 17-year-old unaccompanied minor from Afghanistan. He has lived in Moria camp since August 2017, and before that lived in Afghanistan for eight years and Iran for seven.
The Taliban killed his parents and he moved to Iran with his brother and sister, where he was working 12 hours a day. He arrived in Lesbos on a rubber boat from Turkey, and because he iked to play football after work, he soon joined the program.
A big fan of Barcelona’s Marc-Andre ter Stegen he dreams about becoming the best goalkeeper in the world.
Baloot Ali is a 15-year-old unaccompanied minor from Pakistan. She arrived in Lesbos on August 2018 and now lives alongside her three sisters in Tara Kepe refugee camp. Her mother died many years ago from diabetes, and when her father passed away, she and her sisters fled Pakistan because of they were vulnerable on their own. They too arrived in Lesbos on a rubber boat from Turkey. Baloot loves the fact that, under the refugee programme, football isn’t just for boys, and she dreams of one day becoming a football coach.
