We bring you a charity the uses soccer to engage kids in good practices throughout their lives, Urban Initiatives. The charity´s idea is to give the children and young adults a space to get involved in sports and physical activities and at the same time learn about values in life.

1. +
Soccer for
everybody. Urban
initiatives and their
approach to
difficult kids in
Chicago
By Yosef Meystel
Image courtesy of NUKS USA at Flickr.com

2. + It is a proven fact that sports and physical activities promote good
habits and keep children out of trouble. In a poor neighborhood
where violence and crime could be the daily bread, sports and
exercise can be a choice for children and young adults to use
their free time in productive ways. Or in any neighborhood were
problems like drugs and fights are very common, physical
activities provide another choice to escape problems that come
from not doing anything and having free time on your hands.
Even when life can get monotonous or a bit boring for a child,
sport provides this adrenaline kick everybody needs in their lives.
With this in mind, we bring you a charity the uses soccer to
engage kids in good practices throughout their lives, Urban
Initiatives. The charity´s idea is to give the children and young
adults a space to get involved in sports and physical activities
and at the same time learn about values in life, change disruptive
behavior and have a little fun doing it.

3. + Urban Initiatives, their ideas and approach started in the year
2003 in Cabrini-Green, with two very special persons that
wanted to give back to the world and were willing to invest time
and money doing so. They are Jim Dower and Dan Isherwood.
They wanted to create a place where children could find
extracurricular programs at Byrd Academy. As CPS teachers and
suburban soccer coaches, they were seeking to start something
where they could be involved and use their previous experience
and knowledge to help people. They started Urban Initiatives as a
response to that desire and to the lack of promotion, support and
accessibility for sport in their area.
Their mission was simple: “to empower Chicago’s
underserved children to adopt healthy lifestyles, improve
their academic performance, and build strong character
through sports-based youth development programs”, and
the idea was also to maximize their impact by collaborating with
parents, schools, and community stakeholders.

4. + The approach, that allowed kids to learn, practice, and
experience success, caught the eye of the principal, the staff and
the teachers at Byrd college because they saw that the results
were evident, fast and were translated to the classrooms and had
a very positive impact in and around the school life. The main
program, which was the reason why it had so much support, is
called Work To Play. This program focuses on children in grades
K-4 and gives them the chance to belong to a soccer team,
regardless of their skill or their level. At the same time, children
are taught important lessons about health, character, and
teamwork by their coach and they have meetings, trainings and
games almost 4 times per week. The Work To play program not
only encourages physical activity but also keeps track of the
academic process by combining the participation and
permanence in the team with academic standards: students
have to meet their academic and behavioral standards in order to
stay in the team and teachers at schools have to be involved in
the process and improvement of the student.

5. + An example that Urban Initiatives as an institution
likes to talk about is the case of Damarion. Like many
players, he joined his school’s Work to Play team to
spend more time with his friends, but he was a rather
particular student. When he was at practices he often
was very disruptive and his sociability was rude and
aggressive; he never followed the team’s rules, he
constantly talked when coaches and Team Captains
were giving instructions, and he pushed other players
during drills and trainings. His actions had direct
consequences when he was side-lined for a game.

6. + With very good intuition, coaches saw the need for a one to one
approach and started to work on his behavior using their
approach. Then they told him that he should imagine that he was
the coach and that they were disrupting him when he was trying
to explain the game. With this they could highlight how when they
didn’t interrupt him, he could do his job and the practices were
much more fun for everyone. Soon after some sessions and
trainings, the changes in Damarion’s behavior were evident.
He started to be an active participant and a good teammate.
His academic performance also improved from not accepting
guidance during lessons and being very disrespectful to his
classmates, to an amazing improvement on both topics by the
end of the season, as reported by his teachers. His behavior was
so much better that his coaches voted to include Damarion in the
annual Soccer Ball video as a reward.
An amazing charity group that uses an approach that is proven to
work. You can find more information on this amazing charity at
their website: http://www.urbaninitiatives.org/