Big Issues at Stake at Street Kids World Cup

Members of the Philippine team during a training match in Manila

While the likes of Messi, Ronaldo and Kaka will be among the world’s elite footballers converging on South Africa in June for the FIFA World Cup, teams of lesser-known players are about to kick-off their own tournament in the Rainbow Nation.

The first-ever Street Child World Cup begins on March 15 in the city of Durban, with current and former street children from nine countries - Brazil, India, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Tanzania, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and hosts South Africa - taking part.

The matches will be played on modified pitches at the Durban University of Technology, with both males and females aged 14 to 16 involved.

But while football is the catalyst in bringing the youngsters together, broader issues will also be tackled. Besides each team receiving specialised football coaching during the tournament, players will have opportunities to tell their own stories and will be instructed about their rights.

Organisers intend that the Street Child World Cup will place a spotlight on the plight of the world’s street children and “will formulate a global Street Child Manifesto”. Additionally, a campaign to uphold children’s rights implicit in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) will also stem from the tournament.

This focus on issues which transcend football is a point not lost on Jess Landagan, coach of the Philippine team.

“I’m not just thinking about the football [for the kids],” he says.

A former street child himself, Landagan was fortunate enough to be “saved” from the street by a priest, who subsequently sent him to school. The coach sees himself as a role model for his young charges: after completing high school he went on to study at university, where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, and also represented the Philippine national football team in the 1970s.

Coach Landagan offers advice to a player during training

Landagan says that through his own example, his young players can see that their lives can change. He says that playing for the Philippines - where some 250,000 children live on the nation’s streets, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) - in South Africa over the coming weeks will provide the players, many of whom have experienced severe hardship and traumatic events, with a much-needed boost.

Like his teammates, fifteen-year-old John Robert Gaelan appreciates where Landagan has come from. “I’m proud of him because although he was also homeless when he was younger, he survived and found a job,” says the player set for a striking role in South Africa.

Now living at the Boystown Complex in Manila, his country’s capital, Gaelan was living on the street at the tender age of eight. “Sometimes I slept at my friends’ houses, sometimes in the street. I begged for food from my friends and sometimes from my cousins,” he says.

Harsh experiences are common among the players. Roberto Orlandez, Jr. is the Philippine team’s goalkeeper. Now sixteen, Roberto lived on the streets for two months after leaving home at the age of nine to avoid his alcoholic father.

“I ran away because my father would get a [piece of] wire and hit me,” he says, adding that he no longer has any contact with his parents or sisters.

But along with his teammates, Roberto is excited about representing his country at an international sporting event.

And with the young goalkeeper aiming for a career as a doctor, his coach believes that lessons learned through the players’ dedication to football can also be applied to other areas of their lives, including education.

“The Street Child World Cup will boost the morale of these street children [and demonstrate] through football there is hope that things can change,” says Landagan.

ENDS

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