Play For Hope

For this addition of Sports That Change, I wanted to relay a story about one of a coach that works with Play For Hope named Zed.  Last summer we had the privilege of working with Zed with a group of street children for a week and to host one of his women's and one of his U16 teams at our tournament in the national stadium.  

Recently Zed was charged to put on a women's soccer tournament in Rwanda.  He organized all of the teams and arranged for the money necessary to put on the tournament.  The day of the semifinals while in route to the tournament the team that was set to face Zed's team called and said that he would no longer attend the tournament.  While the coach had agreed to the amount of money to be given to his team to come, he decided the day of the match that he would no longer abide by the rules he had agreed to.  Zed having no idea what to do or to tell his team that had prepared and trained for this match began to make a few phone calls.  By the time he had reached the field he had a secured a team to face his team.  Thee was only one thing about the team Zed found to face his team: none of them had every played football before!  Rather they were a group of prostitutes that Zed had been ministering to  It was quickly decided that it would not be an official tournament match but an exhibition game.   The match began and Zed coached and encouraged both teams and while it was apparent that the second team was not truly competing, they laughed and cheered each other on as they enjoyed being a normal part of society.  In that day, Zed turned greed into an opportunity to uplift one of the lowest parts of society to feel like they were normal humans again.  And he gave an opportunity and a story of joy to a group of women, who would have been and ignored and rejected by most.  Sports opened the door to show that they were humans just as important as anyone else.