Volume 8, Issue 8 / Tammuz 5765 / August 2005

Sports and Education Go Together

"We had to find projects that interested them and utilized their natural abilities".

Lacacho, age 16, advances the ball on the right side. Carefully, he returns it to Akal. Akal spots Solomon who heads a quick pass to 17 year-old Takala who finds Ishatu open in the middle. Suddenly, Lacacho, streaking down from the right sideline receives a sharp pass from Ishatu who blasts a goal past the helpless goalie. The crowd is going wild and the score is 2-0 in favor of Mevasseret!

All of the above players are recent immigrants to Israel from Ethiopia, live in the Mevasseret Absorption Center and are either 16 or 17 years old. They are talented athletes but, more important, they are good sports and hard-working pupils who study at the Kiryat Chinuch High School in Beit Shemesh.

The staff of the Mevasseret Absorption Center, run and operated by the Jewish Agency, knew that it needed to initiate and develop some new ideas and programs in order to keep the many teenage children of the 270 Ethiopian families that now live on the premises off of the streets. Amir Aviran, the cultural and enrichment program director of the absorption center explains, "We had to find projects that interested them and utilized their natural abilities so we developed athletic programs in self-defense, track and field, table tennis and gymnastics in addition to the soccer program". "Furthermore", adds Meir Russo, the director of the absorption center, "we operate this program together with teenagers from the nearby Kiryat Yearim Youth Aliyah Village and adolescents from the neighboring Arab village called Abu Ghosh. The goals of this program are not only athletic but educational as well. We foster common values, sportsmanship, friendship and even coexistence".

In the spring, the team was invited to participate in a series of friendly matches in Paris, Lyons and Grenoble, France. Accompanied by Meir, Amir, and Coach Shaul Mizrachi, who successfully recruited this diverse yet talented group of boys, the team succeeded in bringing home the first-place trophy. Hosted by the local Jewish communities, the boys, for the first time, got a chance to witness, first hand, the magnitude of Diaspora Jewry and its love and allegiance to the State of Israel.

Kapuera demonstration.

During the season, the soccer team practices and plays a game once a week. Recently, the team also won the "Jerusalem Community Center" tournament for boys 14-16 years old. "It felt great. I was so happy to be a member of this team", says Solomon who scored a goal in the decisive championship game. It is obvious that the boys' commitment, drive, sensitivity to each other and teamwork, in addition to their athletic abilities, are the keys to the team's success.

The Mevasseret staff would like to further expand its sports enrichment program to include basketball and involve them in the regional league. "All of these programs are valuable for the short and long-term", emphasizes Meir, "but to implement them we need to raise additional funds since they are not covered by our core budget". Indeed, one basketball coach, Otniel Gadassi, who works at the Jewish Agency, volunteers his time each Friday morning but Meir knows that he can not depend on finding coaches as generous as him. Trophies are nice but the future of these boys is more important. With such dedicated employees, it looks like Lacacho, Akal, Solomon, Takala and Itashu, the youth of today, have a bright future.

Written by: Arnie Bendor
Photos by: Amir Aviran

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