“Kicking It!” a movie about the Homeless World Cup, don’t laugh.

Everybody knows that in the United States we call it “soccer”, and the rest of the world calls it football.

But did you know that over 1 billion people in the world are homeless! And what’s the most popular sport in the world? “Kicking it”, the ball that is.  All over the world, one sees the poor taking a refreshment from their daily trials on the field, and for those minutes or hours they are as a rich in enjoyment as the greatest of professional game players.  Furthermore a championship world cup in the world’s most popular sport and one that draws only from the 1/5 to 1/6 of the world’s most vulnerable population is one of the most incredible ideas I have heard of for a long time.

Last night I had the privilege of watching the film “Kicking it!” about how a ball can change the life of a displaced person in the most dramatic of ways. It chronicles the lives of six homeless or formerly homeless individuals from five countries and how participating in playing in organized street ball can be taken all the way to a very real world championship tournament, in this case in South Africa emceed by  Bishop Desmond Tutu.

The idea was founded in 2001by  Mel Young co-founder of The Big Issue Scotland, and Harald Schmied, editor of Megaphon, a street paper in Austria while attending the International Network of Street Papers conference that was in Cape Town, South Africa. (wikipedia)

Colin Farrell gives the intros and exits to the documentary but the real characters are the six otherwise marginalized people who have the privilege of playing in the tournament:  Najib from war torn Afghanistan; Alex from the slums of Kenya; Damien and Simon from the drug rehab clinics of Dublin, Ireland; Craig from the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina; Jesus from the overflowing public shelters of Madrid, Spain, and Slavan from the shadow culture of the illegal rural immigrants to the big city of St. Petersburg, Russia. (movies.aol.com)

For those who care about the human condition, those in the poverty scene looking for ideas,  fans of any sport will enjoy this movie.  I enjoyed writing this article particularly to learn that other writers in my sector were responsible for making this happen.  I hope you’ll watch it then take some action in your area with a great idea as well.

btw I saw it on hulu.com, but I ‘m sure you can find the movie elsewhere.

Paul Gydos

New Website for Discussion on Transitional Housing – http://hafup.com

I put a little bit of time in to crafting a website for The Discussion on Transitional Housing dubbed, Homeless and Friends United – Piedmont(HAFUP).  You all can see the results at http://hafup.com.

I purchased a short domain name which only costs $1.99 the first year.  Then I forwarded the domain to point to a free webserver service.

I put on the front page a widget which allows you to see the headlines and first few lines of each post on the Google Group Listserv which we created.  If you press on the right links there you can either come into the Google Group interface or read the whole story/post.

I also included a Google Calendar.  I gave access to change the calendar to Theresa Hicks, Liz Seymour, Jennifer Worrells, and myself (Paul Gydos).  If you require any training on Google Calendar feel free to contact me or if I missed someone who should be able to adjust
the calendar.

I included a Google Map for the Greensboro Central Library which for this week is pushed down in favor of a Google Map for the Greensboro Cultural Center.  You can get directions from wherever you are if you study the map widget.

So if you need to post to the website all you need to do is be on the Google Group listserver, then create a post from the Google Group interface or send an email to: homeless-and-friends-united-piedmont@googlegroups.com

I’m a total noobie when it comes to doing this kind of stuff, so I kept it simple for now, as some of what I included was already an exercise for me.

I hope that you like it.  Hopefully will create a list of weblinks soon.  I’m open to suggestions.

Paul Gydos
hafupadmin@gmail.com (for purposes of this discussion)
paulgydos@gmail.com (for general correspondance)
336-965-1816

Video of Paul Gydos at Food Not Bombs farewell at St. Mary’s House – Greensboro

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