Last Wednesday, August 8th I welcomed a delegation of 13 to Haiti. The purpose of the trip was for AIS leaders from all over the world to see the model that we are using in Haiti and also visit other ministries in Haiti to discover their best practices. This trip was the vision of Jon Ortlip, the director of AIS and Kent Manson, who visited Haiti as a member of the Cleveland City stars tour in 2007. Kent is currently the coach of several girls teams for the Ambassadors soccer Club near Cleveland Ohio. Kent brought his wife Kyle along. Kyle is a kindergarten teacher and just loved being with the Haitian children.
The delegation included AIS staff from Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Peru and of course the US. In addition, a businesswoman came to learn about the Genesis Goat project.
On Thursday we visited two non-soccer focused organizations who nevertheless would like us to help them reach their communities through soccer.
Friday we split the team up with 4 doing a soccer clinic for high-level coaches at the National Stadium and the rest of us going to Leogane to see a newer soccer program called “GOALS” that just won the prestigious “Beyond Sport” award. In the afternoon we visited “Athletique D’Haiti” and met with Bobby Duval, the founder and director. He is a dynamic leader who dreamed of building a soccer stadium in the poorest neighborhood of Port-au-Prince: Cite Soliel. Now this dream is coming true! Take a look at his website: http://lathletiquedhaiti.org
Our last stop on Friday was Viva Rio, a Brazilian soccer Academy in Haiti that is trying to produce players capable of becoming professionals in Brazil and around the world. I had a chance to give my testimony to the U-17 team and hopefully we will be able to visit them again soon.
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