L'Athletique d'Haiti is a youth programme founded and directed by Robert Duval for young boys and girls from the Cité Soleil area in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. Robert Duval, who simply goes under the name "Bobby", was a civil rights activist under Baby Doc and was a prisoner in the Fort Dimanche prison before coming to the USA through the intervention of Amnesty National. Back in Haiti after the fall of Duvalier, his young sons who played soccer with friends from Cité Soleil, complained that they did not have a proper soccer field. Robert Duval, a former football player himself, started looking for a solution. He found a terrain near the airport and close to Cité Soleil where broken glass was stored. He rented the terrain and started cleaning, bit by bit, a space that would eventually become a soccer field of proper dimensions. When I first met Bobby in 2000, he had cleared several soccer fields and allowed for girls to come and play too. I met a man who through his energy, enthousiasm, intelligence and hard work was creating a little miracle from nothing. Three men on their knees were clearing a patch for the tiniest bits of scrap glass, and ongoing process. Needless to say, the effort to build the programme has been and remains immense, but it has become the core of Robert Duval's very life. Half of the Haitian super liga and one third of the national football team started out at his programme, which includes coaching and schooling . You can read more about the programme at http://athletiquehaiti.tripod.com/, http://www.yele.org/projects/athletique-dhaiti.html - or just google L'Athletique d'Haiti. Last night (Thursday, July 19) Danish television brought a little taste of the boys on the soccer field (the local park). Watch them dance, click here
A team of 25 boys and coaches - including Bobby Duval - are currently visiting Denmark to play in the youth tournaments Dana Cup and Brondby Cup, on the initiative of Danish journalist Anne Poulsen, who has managed to find sponsers from many sides, the main donors being the Haitian state and DANIDA, a section of the Danish Foreign Ministry. The group arrived Monday night in Copenhagen and have had a few days to get rid of their jetlag and get accustomed to a new and very different country. Their first question upon arriving at their hotel was: Where is the soccer field?? The next day they went to train in a nearby park, met a similar soccer team from Cameroun and the two teams engaged in a match. Haiti won by 4-0!! These guys are so cool!
The group was taken on a sightseeing tour which included a visit at the Copenhagen zoo, starting with a bit of education and meeting with exotic animals - such as snakes...
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from scepticism |
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to confidence! |
Worlds meet....... and all these impression make you tired...
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and then, after a bit of rest.. |
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we're back in business! |
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Group with Danish
biologist (and snake handler) Jonathan and Bobby Duval, second from the
right in the last row. After two days in Denmark,
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It's all about soccer! Friday
the boys travel to Hjorring to
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More pictures and text
today Thursday 27 on BBC
Online
-and the boys are doing very well! Check the score on www.danacup.dk
Ingegerd Nissen Petersen
Copenhagen,
July 20, 2007/updated July 27
haitiformidling@hotmail.com
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