(chinadaily.com.cn/FIFA)
Updated: 2007-12-25 13:52

 

 

Now entering its 43rd year of civil war, Colombia finds its youth buffeted on all sides by crime and conflict, with much of the brightest having fled for safer climes. One such man, who has built a life in the USA, is Juan Pablo Gnecco, 39. He never lost his love of Colombia and is determined to do something to help his countrymen.

"The idea for a charity came one Christmas Day, when I was back in Colombia with my family,” says Juan Pablo, the founder and vice president of the charity programme called ‘Colombianitos’, which means ‘Little Colombians’. "My kids, raised in America were horrified to see a woman and her five children begging at a set of traffic lights in Bogota. They had been brought up amid the abundance of the US!”

Five years later, Colombianitos are involved in numerous projects, using Colombia’s passion for football to keep children in school and out of the clutches of street gangs, prostitution rings, Marxist guerrillas and drug cartels. Thanks to support from sponsors such as FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), Colombianitos now have programmes in five different parts of Colombia and helping some 2,500 children who live in dangerous and desperately-poor areas.

"We do not hand out money,” says Project Director, Maria Elvira Garavito. "All we do is provide football trainers, balls and some kit. However, to be part of the programme, the kids have to be in school and studying hard.”

It was clear that the project would resonate with the football-mad Colombians. There is no shortage of recruits to play on outside dirt pitches, despite the searing sun. Juan Pablo is wading through a sea of kids at the San Felipe School in Ricaurte, a slum of Cartagena. Keeping children in school is an achievement the Columbianitos are celebrating in this part of the city.

International visitors only know Cartagena as a UNESCO World Heritage site, with a walled city built by the Spanish in the 17th century, at its heart. It was here that the Spanish traded in gold and slaves, and where seafaring adventurers like Sir Francis Drake would wait for the treasure ships that were heading back to Spain.

Ricaurte, whilst part of Cartagena, belongs to another world. There is no sewage system in the slum, where children play amid the rubbish and filth. Unemployment is rife and street gangs prowl the narrow tracks between wooden shacks, dealing drugs to the young and recruiting girls to feed the sexual appetites of visiting tourists.

"If I was not playing football with the Colombianitos, I could be into prostitution like some of my friends,” says Dina Luz Bravo with a maturity well beyond her 14 years. Also on the cards could have been a life of crime. With her father long dead, Dina lives in absolute poverty with her mother and siblings, just like so many others of her age who can end up following the footprints of drug lords such as ‘Don’ Diego Montoya. Labelled as the world’s second most-wanted criminal after Osama Bin Laden at his arrest on September 10, Montoya was responsible for 1,500 confirmed killings during his 14-year career as boss of Colombia’s most violent gang.

The Colombianitos have also brought stability to many families in a country that is struck by migration due to the ongoing conflict. There are more than three million Colombians displaced by the violence. Only the Sudan has more people driven from their homes by conflicts of civil war. Colombia’s migration continues today at a rate of 350 people fleeing their homes every day.

One such family is the Martinez’s. Miriam Martinez is thrilled that two of her sons are in the Colombianitos programme, and believes that it has provided an anchor for her family to Cartagena. She has no plans to return to the mountains south of the city from where her family fled after combats between warring factions.

"The football keeps my two boys in school,” she said looking fondly at her eldest, Luis Eduardo, aged 15. "It is all they ever talk about.”

The boys idolise the football coaches who hold court on the packed earth of the football pitches, which is turned into a bog when it rains. "The Colombianitos programme keeps the kids busy during their free time. It also keeps them off drugs, which are common here,” said Margolis Ladues, 25, one of the programme’s trainers.

But the project is more than just football. Behind the scenes a psychologist and a social worker identify vulnerable children and work with the families to keep them in school and to deal with the pressures of coping in one of the world’s most violent societies.

The police praise the Colombianitos, insisting it has made their lives much easier in Ricaurte and cut the levels of common crime and drug abuse.

"The football is keeping the kids out of trouble,” says Sergeant Ivan Gonzales. "Before, we were nervous about entering parts of this neighbourhood, but the Colombianitos have become a focus for the community and a force for good”.

Luis Alfonso Jimenez, 40, a community leader echoed these sentiments. "Drug use is rampant in this neighbourhood, with distribution controlled by the local gangs,” he says, pointing to youths gathered on street corners, with the obligatory baseball cap set at jaunty angles and the leaders sporting gold chains around their necks. "But now the kids realise that there is an alternative for them: football and school.”