{"id":14623,"date":"2014-04-22T18:18:18","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T21:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=14623"},"modified":"2015-12-23T23:11:13","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T02:11:13","slug":"brazil-girls-team-from-complexo-da-penha-are-champions-of-street-child-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=14623","title":{"rendered":"Brazil Girls’ Team from Penha Are 2014 Street Child World Cup Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Less than a week after being named Champions of the 2014 Street Child World Cup<\/a>\u00a0in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Girls Team returned to practice. The girls range from age 12 to 18 and come from Complexo da Penha<\/a> and Vila Cruzeiro<\/a> in\u00a0Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone. They are\u00a0all a part of the\u00a0Favela Street<\/a>\u00a0organization\u00a0which through soccer\u00a0motivates and encourages girls who need structure, a safe environment and appreciation, to make and reach their life goals. After participating in the 10-day Street Child World Cup, the girls returned with energy, new friendships from around the world, and confidence to proudly say\u00a0\u2018I Am Somebody.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The Street Child World Cup was hosted in Rio de Janeiro from March 28\u00a0to April 7\u00a0and brought together over 230 boys and girls from 19 different countries in a football tournament, festival arts and participatory conference on children’s rights. The event\u00a0brings international attention to the\u00a0global issue of youth homelessness and poverty. Each country\u2019s team was not selected solely for foot skills on the field, but rather the players or \u2018Street Champions\u2019 were selected because they are inspiring examples of change from local organizations in each country working to fight child homelessness and street labor. The term street child in a broader definition refers to children who are connected to the streets, whether by living or working on the streets in their respective countries. Both a girls and boys team represented Brazil in the tournament; the Girls Team from Favela Street\u00a0in Penha, Rio de Janeiro and the Boys Team from the\u00a0O Pequeno Nazareno<\/a>\u00a0NGO in Fortaleza.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Although the players arrived in Rio ready to compete to be the 2014 World Cup Champions, this tournament enhanced the hope and encouragement soccer has already given these \u2018Street Champions.\u2019 The tournament focused on the platform that \u201cNo child should have to live on the street\u201d to gain international acknowledgement for the promotion of children\u2019s rights. A number of the children involved in the tournament have traumatic histories of violence and abuse related to drug gangs<\/a> and police brutality<\/a>. The tournament encouraged each of the players to realize they are valued, they have a future, and they are somebody.\u00a0Street Child World Cup\u2019s website<\/a> states, \u201cthis group of young people are inspiring examples of how every street-connected child has a future away from the streets when they receive the right protection, rehabilitation and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Brazil teams, the campaign to promote rights for street children and to protect street children from violence took on even greater significance following the tragic death of the Brazilian Boys Team captain, Rodrigo Kelton, in February<\/a>. Rodrigo was shot and killed on his 14th<\/sup> birthday by drug traffickers in revenge for an alleged robbery in the favela where his family lives in Fortaleza. Both the Brazilian girls and boys remembered Rodrigo throughout the week by wearing black armbands during their matches. The Brazilian boys carried around a painting of their teammate.\u00a0A number of other countries also played to honor Rodrigo and all street children who\u00a0have been victims of violence.<\/p>\n

\"Brazil<\/a>To prepare for the Street Child World Cup, the Brazilian Girls Team from Penha practiced four times every week. Jessica, a Favela Street coach who grew up in Penha, said: \u201cSoccer makes a difference in all of our lives. It distracts us and helps a lot with our health. Truthfully, there wasn\u2019t an event like this for girls before.\u201d Although Brazil is known for its passion for soccer, women traditionally could not participate. During the military dictatorship<\/a>, from 1941 to 1979, a law was\u00a0imposed\u00a0prohibiting girls and women from playing soccer<\/a>\u00a0as it\u00a0was considered \u201cincompatible with the female form.\u201d Even since the fourth incarnation of a women’s league this past September, there has not been support for women\u2019s teams. Favela Street has helped to bring girls\u2019 soccer to the center stage.<\/p>\n

\"Street<\/a>Communication at the tournament was difficult between players since most only spoke their native language. The Brazilian girls said Portuguese allowed them to speak with a few other teams including those\u00a0from Mozambique and that Portuguese was similar enough to Spanish to communicate with other participating Latin American teams from\u00a0El Salvador, Nicaragua and Argentina. Regardless of language setbacks, the players formed\u00a0strong friendships. Brazilian Girls Team Captain, Claudiane, 18, stated, \u201cIt was hard to communicate with the other teams but still we became such good friends with them all. Everyone\u2019s friends on Facebook now and we talk all the time.\u201d For the Brazilian girls, one of the strongest bonds was with the girls team from the Philippines, the team they played\u00a0against in the final match. Coach Jessica explained, \u201cThe hardest part of the week was the game between Brazil and the Philippines in the final<\/a>. Not because of the game itself but because of the friendship our girls had with the other team. They were best friends; it was hard to play against them. Overall, it was a great game still, both sides played great. Friendship showed the meaning of the event.\u201d<\/p>\n

After such an exciting experience, it was hard for the girls to return to their home life. Claudiane said, \u201cThis week has been boring. I need to go to work and school again. I just want to go back. I really loved the Street Child World Cup and I already miss it and my friends.\u201d For Claudiane, the hardest part of the week was leaving. She said, \u201cIt was really emotional, everyone was singing the Shosholoza folk song<\/a> from Zimbabwe and South Africa\u00a0again. We finally learned the translation on that last day which meant to go forward, go forward on this train from the mountains, that you are running away. It was a song of support and encouragement in hard times. It was so relevant and sad once we knew the meaning and it was time for us to all go home.\u201d A significant message to all teams as they headed home was to keep moving forward, to remember they have support in difficult times, and to remember that they are somebody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Less than a week after being named Champions of the 2014 Street Child World Cup\u00a0in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Girls Team returned to practice. The girls range from age 12 […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":14637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1290,1333,1284],"tags":[125,812,1172,516,1105,37,193,1173,207,1171,1017,30,31],"writer":[1167],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-civilsociety","8":"category-event-reports","9":"category-interviews-profiles","10":"tag-drug-traffic","11":"tag-empowerment","12":"tag-fortaleza","13":"tag-homeless","14":"tag-military-dictatorship","15":"tag-north-zone","16":"tag-penha","17":"tag-soccer","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-street-child-world-cup","20":"tag-childrens-rights","21":"tag-urban-violence","22":"tag-vila-cruzeiro","23":"writer-rachael-hilderbrand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14623"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=14623"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=14623"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=14623"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=14623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}