Letter from Rana Khoury, vice president of development and outreach at Diyar to Pilgrims board member Susan Mozena. Pilgrims is proud to be partners with the team!
Diyar Girls’ Soccer Team
Our ministry with the young girls in sports, has been deeply impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as Bethlehem faced heavy lock-downs for many months during this year starting in March, and again applied in late June. So, it was impossible to really do much in terms of training while all events and public gatherings have been cancelled so far. However, we had major moments that we would like to share with you and highlight here below:
- January 2020: our first soccer team conducted an activity to empower the relations between female players in Palestine at different clubs, so 20 participants from different female soccer teams participated at a soccer tournament that was organized and led by our female leaders at Dar al Kalima sport hall in Bethlehem for one day. This event contributed in building peaceful and positive relations between girls from different backgrounds in an unforgettable way.
- January 2020: our team mate Tala Abu Eid who is one of the first female soccer players in Palestine, had the chance to participate and represent our team at “promoting Gender Equality through women’s empowerment in Football in North Lebanon and the MENA Region” workshop in Berlin-Germany. So she participated in a panel discussion there as well during the conference and attached is a picture for her during her participation.
- February 2020: our Under 15 youngsters soccer team with the supervision of Coach Sarab Alshaer was able to be the first on the south clubs participants list who were participating with them at the “U15 Palestinian soccer competition that was organized by the Palestinian football federation”. They were supposed to continue the playing the rest of games (to play against other winning teams from central and north areas to determine the team that will be the Champions of Palestine for U15). But unfortunately they had to stop due to COVID-19 pandemic situation. And we do not know until now when they will continue the competition.
- March 2020: our first soccer team participated in raising awareness about the importance of #STAYING HOME DURING COVID-19 pandemic situation. They formed together a short video by which they sent the health messages to all people and team’s fans on Facebook platform.
- September 2020: 4 of our first soccer team members were able to get a scholarship from Dar Al-kalima University College to join the Sports management Program for a BA degree (this is a new degree that have been accredited this year).
- October 2020: our first soccer team started their training with Coach Farah Zakharia twice a week again with being committed to all safety Procedures.
- October 2020: the head of Diyar club- Jackline Jazrawi represented Diyar at a dialogue called (Women’s Voices in Dialogue-SPORTS) that was organized by the General Consulate of Spain in Jerusalem. She had the opportunity to talk about the development of women soccer in Palestine and especially at Diyar women sport club as a success story.
And perhaps the good news in all of this is that despite the very difficult situation that makes it challenging for many young girls and women to join the teams at this moment, as many have not be able to, we still have 53 young girls and women players going strong and being committed. Actually, the majority indicated that their commitment and strength is because they continue to be active in our sports programs. Therefore, one of our main tasks for 2021 is to increase again the number of youngsters playing soccer so as to have a strong base to build on for our First team. The players are divided on the following teams:
1. Diyar First Soccer team- Above 16 years: 23 female players.
2. Diyar soccer youngsters Team A+B- Under 15 years: 15 female players.
3. Diyar Female volleyball team: 15 female Players
Many thanks for Pilgrims of Ibillin’s support!
Sincerely,
Rana Khoury