Collect Pairs Of Sneakers and Soccer Cleats , Support Youth Environmental Entrepreneurship, Participate In Project Athletic Shoes,  and Build A Village

Creating 21st Century Youth Leaders Through Sharing The Cup of Hope

There Are Two Soccer Worlds - One Soccer Community

More information on the Soccer Donation Project is available to you from soccer@satglobal.com  Our Soccer Donation web site is http://www.satglobal.com/donate_boots.htm. Want To Know More About The Honduras Youth Soccer Project?

Send Your Donations (athletic shoes, balls, cleats, uniforms, t-shirts, shorts, warmup clothes, balls, goalkeepers gear,  medals, trophies, first aid equipment, referee gear, goals, nets) to:

Soccer Action For A Green World

If You Are A Soccer Player, A Soccer Team, A Soccer League, A Soccer Association Anywhere in the World - You Are Invited to Join In The Fight To Push Back Global Warming

See Pictures Of These Soccer Youth Planting Trees To Offset Your Carbon Emissions

Collect Pairs Of Sneakers , Support Youth Environmental Entrepreneurship, Participate In Project Athletic Shoes,  and Build A Village

Creating 21st Century Youth Leaders Through Sharing The Cup of Hope

Bringing The Two Soccer Worlds Into

Confluence Through International Soccer Tournaments

 & Sharing Soccer Resources

Our Children Are Inheriting A Far More

Complicated World Than The One We Were Born Into

The People Of the World Must Unite To Fight Global Warming - Read the Article Only A Fool Fights In A Burning House

Creating 21st Century Youth Leaders

A Special Report

Dr. Carol Cross, Founder of Soccer For Life

sfl@satglobal.com

Part One

You Can Change The World By

Sharing The Soccer Cup Of Hope

When Life Was Simpler

I was born in the woods of Southeast Arkansas from a Native American mother and an AfroHeritage Father.  When I was three years old they divorced and my Indian mother left me with the Indian family.  I never saw my AfroHeritage father again, and was raised completely in the Native American culture.  Life was quite simple then.  We had no electricity but we did have a battery radio.  Every Saturday morning I listened to "Let's Pretend", a very special radio program. I lived on a farm so each day I did chores.  I woke up before 5 am to go on horseback to collect the cows from open range and brought them to be fed and milked. I milked them, then fed the hogs, chickens and other animals. I ate breakfast, then back on horseback to take the cattle back.  Then I walked to the one room schoolhouse where my cousin taught all eight grades in a one room schoolhouse.  My life centered around school, church, family and chores.  I enjoyed fishing, horseback riding and reading.  As a child I did not play much with other children.  I was very intelligent and skipped two grades ahead which put me with children much older.  So I never bonded to the group of children around me.  As a result I was quite insular, and very much involved with my inner life.  I loved listening to the stories of the "elders" of both cultures.  I never heard the word drug, cocaine, heroin or marijuana as a child.

I Was Taught To Give At An Early Age

We raised vegetables, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, hogs, cows and horses on our small farm.  Every Saturday and Sunday my grandparents and I went on our food route.  We fed about 20 families.  When I was very young we went in a horse drawn wagon with our gifts of vegetables, meat, milk and eggs to poor families.  Later my grandfather purchased an old red Chevrolet truck.  We started it with a crank in the front.  We would go to the poor families and give our food.  That is where I learned the joy of giving. I have tried the rest of my life to live the same kind of giving life.  That is why I have traveled to Honduras after Hurricane Mitch.

 I started a non profit called Links of Compassion and brought Bibles, garden seeds and other items to poor women in the North Coast and to Intibuca.  I started Soccer for Life after I saw children playing with sticks after Hurricane Mitch.  I discovered the same generosity I lived with as a child with my grandparents in the people in the soccer world.  They have shared their soccer gear and continue to share it with the poor children of Honduras.  It was a joy to me as a child to see the faces of the people we took the food to.  And it is equally joyous to share the soccer gear through Soccer for Life.

Life Is Not So Simple For My Grandson

I tell you all this to contrast this with the life of my grandson who now lives we me. He is confronted with drugs, porno online, spam online, popups, explicit ads, videos, and the availability of all kinds of literature that never enter my life.  On the positive size,  he started using his computer when 3 years old playing "Boulder Dash" on his Commodore on my lap.  He has grown up with computers and now has a more powerful one than I do. Right now his new project is to build a computer that is equivalent to "Alienware" whatever that is. And he works side by side with me in Soccer for Life as volunteer coach and "all around helper".   There was no AIDS when I was a child, now every person is a threat.  There were only the AfroHeritage and Native American people in my life.  I think in one town near me there was a Chinese person who had a restaurant.  But the cultures we encountered were those of family members.

There was no terrorism,  There was a "Jap Camp" where it was planned to keep Japanese prisoners but the war ended.  Our lives were centered around church, the Baptist Church to be exact.  There were only Christians no other faiths flourished in this little town. Schools and life were segregated into AfroHeritage and white. My Native American relative with their white skins and straight hair called themselves Black because they didn't want people to think they were "Dirty Indians". The army was just beginning to integrate.  The economy was based on cotton.

The World Is Now A Multicultural Whirlwind

Now my grandson lives in a world of multicultural dizziness.  How many refugees from how many countries now are found in any school just about anywhere?  We seem to be fighting a war against Islamic terrorists, a concept unheard of in my childhood.  I did know about the Crusades, however. Now the subject might be 9-11,  Darfur, Kabul, Baghdad, Tamil, Colombian guerillas, narcotrafic.  A whole new set of words have been added to the English language. Indeed our USA has truly become the melting pot. Now in the community where I grew up, Hispanics are pouring in by the dozens.  Cotton has been replaced by logging as cotton has moved east to the Delta.

It Was Easy In Lead in Simpler Times

Leadership in those simple days was easy.  The people were of one group, one religion, one lifestyle, one history, and one shared childhood background. But the children of today who we need to develop as leaders have much more challenges to face.  How do we lead people who have different values than we do?  How can we talk about our religious heritage which was once the underpinning of who we were, if some of our followers have completely different ideas of what is right and what is wrong?  Now Europe is facing becoming an Islamic world.  The Muslims are demanding to wear their veils everywhere.  That to many is just a way to cover up terrorists who want to infiltrate areas.

The New Multicultural World That Faces Our Children Requires Leaders Who Can Find The One Point Of Mutual Agreement

Here at Soccer for Life, we recognize the importance of sharing. We accept that soccer is the most important game in the world. It affects more lives than any other force.  Soccer is a language understood by a young member of an elite soccer team in Simi Valley California as well as a child playing with a homemade soccer ball in the mountains of Intibuca. And this flow of love for the beautiful game between all who play this wonderful sport is our key to developing a more peaceful world.  We know that some people are born with more than others, whether it be more soccer talent, more money, more educational opportunities, more family security, more personal freedom and more opportunities to reach our personal potentials.  If we want peace, if we the ability to travel freely between places on our world, if we want not to have any more 9-11s, then we who have more must find a way to share with those who do not have enough. 

Our Personal Outreach For Leadership Through Sharing

Here in Honduras we have developed the Honduras Youth Soccer Project dedicated to facilitating the conduit of resources from those who have access to balls, uniforms, soccer cleats, nets, all the accoutrements for playing soccer  to those who do not have the same access.  We donate to teams, to leagues, to groups, to communities, to churches, to schools, all to children who just want a chance to play soccer.  In order to obtain the necessary resources to provide these items to those who do not have the same access we have, we operate the Soccer Gear Donation Project.  Here privileged soccer youth in Europe, America and Japan collect soccer gear and share it through Soccer for Life to poor children in Honduras.  The Soccer for Life approach has drawn much attention and now people are asking us to develop Soccer Gear Donation Projects in Mexico, Nicaragua, in inner cities of the USA, in African countries and today a request came for help in developing a project in Mongolia..

We Are Seeking To Unite Two Soccer Worlds

Those who have more are being offered more and more opportunities to share through soccer.  Indeed in Honduras we have expanded our donations through the development of Donation Concursos, which include the component of fighting global warming through tree planting as well as other  environmental values.  We understand our blessings as well as our responsibility toward those in the Two Soccer Worlds. There are Two Soccer Worlds, that of those who have and that of those who need.  The Soccer Gear Donation Project stands in the center of these two worlds and serves as a conduit for the flow of resources.  We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our world and our planet.

One Of Our Goals Is An International Soccer Passport

We are seeking ways to develop leadership skills through our soccer programs because one of our goals is a Soccer For Life  International Soccer Passport which will enable soccer players who belong to a recognized league to travel freely everywhere in the world to play soccer.  We are in the process of creating the Soccer for Life Youth Leadership Academy which will be based in Florida and Honduras.

That is why Soccer for Life is promulgating is suggesting a new kind of leadership.  A leadership based on teaching and sharing.  Not based on who is right and who is wrong. It is a leadership based on finding "One Point Of Mutual Agreement" and working from that basis.  In this multicultural world being developed, Americans are going to have to develop a new leadership style.  We are going to have to become the teachers and sharers of the world instead of the controllers. That means we are going to become true leaders by actually understanding other cultures. We have to develop means of developing rapprochement between ourselves in our open, giving, volunteer oriented culture  with others who see things quite differently.  We will have to learn to interface with others in developing and other countries who have not yet moved to give and take.

The Key To People Development Is To Teach People To Be Grateful

Here in Honduras with the Honduras Youth Soccer Project we are teaching gratefulness.  Now you may say everyone is grateful when you give them things.  But here the children do not use the words thank you or thanks. They see things differently than we do.  In the USA we tell our children, "don't beg".  Here they teach their children to beg and to steal.  We tell our children  say thank you.  Here the children snatch the gifts and run.  Many children and adults steal when they do not have to because they feel empty and are afraid things will never come their way again.  Developing an organization of volunteers is difficult.

Our American, European and Japanese children are inheriting a world with an ever growing population of those who want to "get and take" instead of those who want to "receive and be grateful". 

How will our young people learn to lead in such a world? And lead they must if the world is to not become a dog eat dog, steal and take what you can world.  If we do not take leadership through teaching and sharing, the world will become a much more dangerous place in which to live.

How To Lead In The 21st Century

There Has Never Been A Time Like This In History

1.  There are No More Barriers Of Air, Land Or Sea

2.  We Are All Coming Together In Real Time

3. The Airplane Has Made Every Place On The World Accessible

4.  The Television Has Brought The World Into Everyone's Living Room

5.  The Internet Has Made It Possible For All of Us To Communicate

6..  Global Warming Has Threatened Our Species With Truly Having a Water Planet

7.  The Global Production Conduit Has Eliminated The Concept Of Job Security

8..  American English Has Become The World Interface Language

9.  Those Who Have Much Have Discovered There Is Greater Joy In Giving Than Having

10. Immigrants Walk The World Changing the Population Mix Of Countries

10.  We As A Species Are Dividing Into Those Who Seek A New Spirituality And Those Who Want to Keep Us In The Pleistocene

11.  All Our Old Mind Clonish Ideas Have Become Obsolete And We Must Seek To Move To A New Equilibrium Point- Rapprochement  If We Are To Survive.

12.  We  Need To Learn How To Preserve The Species That We Have Left, Protect Our Environment and Replant Our Forests

Each of the Above Topics Will Be Developed More Fully  In Other Parts Of The Report

Comments to Dr. Carol Cross at sfl@satglobal.com

How Do Our Children Have To Know To Lead In This New World?

Each of the Above Topics Will Be Developed More Fully  In Other Parts Of The Report

WHAT ARE THE CORNERSTONES FOR CREATING RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN ALL GROUPS INVOLVED

We will need to establish a few ground rules at the beginning.  This has to begin in our homes, in our soccer clubs, in our sports activities, in our churches, and schools.  We need to accept these facts at the beginning to enable us to teach them to others:

A KEY TO ACHIEVING RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN DISPARATE GROUPS - UNDERSTANDING CORE AND PERIPHERAL VALUES

Any time you have two or more people discussing an idea or project or how to do something, each person is carrying two sets of values. Some values are negotiable and others non-negotiable.

A. Central Core Values are non-negotiable
B. Peripheral Values are negotiable

A.1 Central core values are inflexible and define who we are
B.1 Peripheral values are where flexibility occurs. We define how we could change and who we could become or what we could become

EXAMPLE: USING PAPER is a core value. Civilization demands paper; they want hard copy even off the Internet.

Non-Wood paper is a peripheral value; it is how you make it, which is different than saying you can't have paper at all.

A.2 Some Central Core value examples:
* meet the basic criteria of maintaining sustainability of world forest reserves
* fighting the greenhouse effect
* creating a working environment for continued interactions between consortium members
* developing waste free and environmentally sound systems
* the validity of each group and its right to exist
* making systems profitable that provide a reasonable return on investment
* serving as a source of employment and foreign exchange procurement
* learn from every one and each other
* more trees should be planted

B.2 Peripheral values examples
* how many trees to plant
* how many trees to cut
* what will we use the trees for

The reason we need to know about the core and peripheral values is that when we pull together a consortium, the first thing we need to find out is what the core and peripheral values are of each person. We have to find a place of rapprochement of the peripheral values and not impinge upon the core values. The peripheral values are the negotiables which can be worked with so projects can proceed.

To Lead In This World - Our Youth Must Learn To Work In Groups

We accept the fact that no group, no industry, no organization, nor no individual can regenerate and create a sustainable Earth alone. It involves moving all of us to a mind set in which only sustainable development will be acceptable and the Herculean task of moving all Humans

 core values to include sustainability as a basic definer of Human life. Therefore, we postulate that every group must be drawn into many separate consortiums and ultimately into one consortium of consortiums through the Internet so that communication will be facilitated and effective.

Our Goals Include Bringing Together Youth From Developed Countries And Youth From Developing Countries Through Soccer And Tree Planting.

Each of the Above Topics Will Be Developed More Fully  In Other Parts Of The Report

THIS SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Come Back Next Week For More Of This Special Report

Links To The Soccer Gear Donation Project

Youth Leaders Cup

Young Soccer Athletes!  Want to Play Soccer, Learn Soccer Spanish, Have Cross Cultural Fun ,And Learn To Be A Soccer Leader?  Play and Share In The SFL Youth Soccer Leaders Tournament "Youth Leaders Cup (YLC)" In Honduras This Summer

Held In The Mountain Cloud Forest Of Intibuca

CLICK HERE