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Table of Contents

Cover Story

Cover Story - Spanish Version

Mini-Lesson

Comprehension Quiz

Teacher's Guide and Worksheets

Players With Pride

Spanish Translation

Martha Pickerill

It is a Saturday morning in Nairobi, Kenya. Hundreds of poor kids gather at a school field in Kibera (ky-bee-rah), a large slum. They play in a soccer league, and it's game day.

Their equipment would surprise most U.S. soccer players. The kids have spades, rakes, wheelbarrows and trash bags. They will spend five hours clearing trash, sorting items for recycling and hauling it all away. In one year, the kids will clear more than 250 tons of garbage from their community. Digging into Kibera's mountains of trash is the only way to earn a spot on a team.

In Kibera, nearly 1 million people live in an area that's less than a square mile. The residents are poor, and many have health problems. There is a history of violence between members of several different ethnic groups. But an organization started by a U.S. Marine captain is helping Kibera's residents rise above despair and imagine a brighter future.

Hope in a harsh place

Rye Barcott was a student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill when he first visited Kibera in 2001. He decided to start Carolina for Kibera (CFK) to help people living in the slum build richer lives. Having kids clean up Kibera before playing soccer was his idea. "They accept some responsibility for the welfare of their community," he told TFK. As a U.S. Marine, Barcott has served in Bosnia, Africa and Iraq. He returns to Kibera often and keeps its people in his heart. "I think about Kibera every day," he says.

The sports program's manager in Kenya, Salim Mohamed, works directly with the soccer teams. No fighting between ethnic groups is tolerated on the teams. "Building relationships that cut across ethnicity is key to CFK," says Mohamed. "A culture of love and respect is shared."

The league has about 2,000 kids playing on more than 200 teams, including a girls' league. Most girls in Kenya do not play organized sports. "Establishing girls' soccer shows that the community has accepted that girls can be involved in sports too," says Mohamed.

Beyond the soccer field

Girls in Kibera are rarely encouraged to get an education, either. Traditionally, women marry young. A CFK group called Binti Pamoja, which is Swahili for Daughters United, is helping girls to envision a new kind of life. "I see CFK's impact in their hope, vitality and dignity," says Kimberly Chapman, the chairperson of CFK's board of directors. Chapman volunteers her time for CFK in North Carolina, where she lives. She makes the 15-hour trip to Nairobi at least once each year.

With the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the group supports a free health clinic in Kibera. More than 15,000 patients per year visit the Tabitha Clinic, which has two full-time doctors and many staff members from the community. "When I first arrived in Kibera, six years ago, many residents had never seen a doctor in their lives, let alone had a chance to visit one in the slum," says Barcott.

In every program that CFK sponsors, Kiberans take responsibility and have the power to make decisions. "CFK values that nothing in life is free," says Mohamed. "Everything has to be earned. The young people have learned that they can contribute to the solutions that affect the community."

CFK's leaders see the future in today's hardworking soccer players. "These youths will one day be able to challenge the systems and structures that created Kibera in the first place," says Barcott. "CFK is much more than soccer."

Next: Out of the Woods