{"id":442,"date":"2012-08-03T20:56:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-03T20:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pilgrimsofibillin.org\/?p=442"},"modified":"2012-08-14T00:20:51","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T00:20:51","slug":"girls-sports-leadership-development-in-bethlehem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/girls-sports-leadership-development-in-bethlehem\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls&#8217; Sports = Leadership Development in Bethlehem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Pastor Mitri Raheb of Bethlehem\u2019s Christmas Lutheran Church launched a Young Adult Leadership Development effort in 2007, he didn\u2019t yet have program funding, but he knew training young leaders was important. Pilgrims of Ibillin provided early and ongoing funds to help with this highly successful program which helps young leaders develop both personal and professional strengths.<\/p>\n<p>For the first two years a group of 25 young adults met weekly with Pastor Raheb and other community leaders. Then the 25 were challenged to go out into the community to use what they had learned \u2014 to BE leaders in some-thing creative they care about.<\/p>\n<p>One member of this group, Honey Thaljieh, applied her newly minted leadership skills to developing a women\u2019s soccer program in the Bethlehem area through the Diyar Consortium\u2019s Dar al Kalima Health and Wellness program. Through Diyar, in turn, Honey has also helped launch a national women\u2019s soccer program in the West Bank. In May 2011, the Diyar Women\u2019s Soccer Team won first place in the first-ever Palestinian national women\u2019s soccer tournament!<br \/>\nHoney\u2019s initiative laid the groundwork for key successes in the last two years:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A trip to Germany gave the Diyar soccer team a chance to play against German teams and enroll in an in-tensive athletic leadership program.<\/li>\n<li>A return visit by German coaches trained local coaches\u2014not only to improve players\u2019 skills, but also to organize and coach soccer programs for kids from refugee camps and the streets.<\/li>\n<li>Many Diyar team members also play on Palestine\u2019s first-ever na-tional Women\u2019s Soccer Team, thus contributing to Palestinian women\u2019s success in international sports.<\/li>\n<li>The German soccer team paid a return visit to the Bethlehem soccer team in June 2012 (see photo above)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In 2011 Honey and the other Diyar Young Leaders met together again \u2014 to reflect on their leadership experiences, and dream of next steps.<\/p>\n<p>Honey, however, left in mid-2011 to become the first Arab woman ever accepted into FIFA\u2019s prestigious Master\u2019s Program\u2014a 9-month training program set in Europe. \u00a0She graduated this summer and brings her considerable skills home to Bethlehem. \u00a0Congratulations, Honey! (Watch <a title=\"Captain Honey\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UjWaasWhvwk&amp;feature=g-high-u\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Captain Honey&#8221;<\/a> on YouTube!)<\/p>\n<p>The program Honey launched 2 years ago has borne fruit, even through her absence. \u00a0Coaches trained through the women&#8217;s sports program of Diyar now run basketball and soccer programs for girls: \u00a0sixty 6-9 year-olds, and sixty 10-12 year-olds.<\/p>\n<p>Diyar asks, &#8220;How can you bring people together? How can you build bridges? How can you witness great communication among humans? SPORTS Indeed!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Pastor Mitri Raheb of Bethlehem\u2019s Christmas Lutheran Church launched a Young Adult Leadership Development effort in 2007, he didn\u2019t yet have program funding, but he knew training young leaders was important. Pilgrims of Ibillin provided early and ongoing funds to help with this highly successful program which helps young leaders develop both personal and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/girls-sports-leadership-development-in-bethlehem\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Girls&#8217; Sports = Leadership Development in Bethlehem&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,22,17],"tags":[41,24,26,27,25],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bethlehem","category-diyar-consortium","category-peace-building-partners","tag-bethlehem","tag-diyar","tag-palestine","tag-peace","tag-womens-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":456,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsofibillin.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}