SHOW DE BOLA
Project Show De Bola is a soccer project that was started in 2006 by a former professional Brazilian soccer player, Milton. The project is reaching out to the children and youth of the neighborhood through soccer. The goal is to keep them away from crime and drugs and to encourage them to go to school, respect others and take care of their families. They learn that Jesus loves them and has great plans for them and that they can do something with their lives and make a difference where they are. To be a part of a soccer team in Show De Bola the children has to take care of their school and homework. With school, homework, soccer practice several times a week plus soccer matches there is no time for them to hang out on the streets.
The project is a part of Youth With A Mission in Recife, Brazil. It started with 15 boys and today more than 100 children and youth are a part of the project. Three times a week volunteers connected to the project go to the neighborhood to talk to the children’s families. They talk to them about how they’re doing in school, at home and among friends. To keep this project running they are dependent on all the support they can get. The project is growing constantly and the resources are few.
Leader used to be on the streets
The leader of Show De Bola, Cícero Felix used to be on the streets of Recife himself. Today he is married and has a son. He is studying Sports at university and uses his education in the soccer project.
The national leader of Youth With A Mission Denmark knows the former street boy from his many years of work in the Hope House in Recife, Brazil.
”If I have to describe my friend Cícero in a few words it will be something like this: A young man who, by giving God space to be God in his life, has been able to turn a life, that many people has judged to be without hope, into a fruitful life. The fact that Cícero has invited God into his life has changed his family and broken a generational curse of poverty, hunger and addiction. God has worked miracles in Cícero’s life, and the boy that Satan tried to destroy and kill is now full of life and is giving God glory just by being alive.”
– Ulrik Corneliussen
Challenges right now
They are in the project 100 % dependent on gifts and donations in everything they do. The great desire and need right now is a new soccer field, placed in the outskirts of the YWAM base compound. The field needs to be a certain size in order for them to use it for tournaments, so it will be bigger than their current practice field. The plan is also to build locker rooms and showers. The reality is that they need to use another soccer field a while away when they play matches against other teams. Both the transportation and the rent of the field is expensive.
The whole project will cost around 54,000 Euros.
You can be a part of helping Cícero and the others, both by praying for them and by supporting financially.
