In 2022 my son Sebastian won a US$4000 grant with a proposal to sponsor an all girls' soccer team for U18 girls at the Indochina Startfish Foundation (ISF)

Indochina Starfish Foundation (ISF)

in the Slum community of Stoeng Meanchey in Phnom Penh. This money paid for a group of 20 young women all between the ages of 14-17yrs, students at ISF, to train and play soccer twice weekly for one full year. This money paid for a trained coach, rental of soccer grounds, uniform (which Sebastian helped to design), soccer shoes and transportation to games, and fees to participate in local competition.

Sebastian chose to sponsor girls at ISF because we as a family, had worked with ISF in years before, going with the HKFootball club to bring soccer gear and play with local kids in the Slum community there. Families who are at this school are chosen because they are in the lowest 5% of society, and earn their living scavenging for saleable trash at the giant landfills in Stoeng Meanchey earning around US$1 a day. This made an impression on Sebastian. He wanted to separately give young disadvantaged girls the opportunity for sport & to play soccer - since girls in Phnom Penh are overlooked and not given opportunities to be play...they instead are expected to work, scavenge the landfills for family's income, help domestically at home, and rarely get to have an education, let alone play, and play a sport at that.

Sabina, Francesca and I all went to Phnom Penh to join Sebastian in August 2022, and to train with the girls' team which he sponsored and watch them compete in a local tournament. We were so fortunate to get to know these young women, and their family & community. The trip was memorable, not only because these young women are incredible in their attitudes toward hardship, but their love of sport, grace, smiles and enthusiasm for their opportunities afforded them at ISF, and the chance to play soccer.

As Sebastian says, "...my sponsorship enabled a group of 20 girls to forget twice a week for 90 minutes the hardship and stress of their home lives, to play, to smile, to hug one another, to be children".

I would like to fundraise with my running - specifally this HKMARATHON that I've been training for in the last 2 months after a two year Covid forced haitus - in order to continue to sponsor this team of young women of ISF at Stoeng Meanchey in Phnom Penh.

Ultimately, one year is not enough for them, they need to have a few years of this program to really reap the benefits of sports, excercise and play - which builds their sense of self, confidence and identity.

Join me in this! For every dollar up to my target you donate, I will match!

If we raise more than our target amount, we will be able to continue to fund the soccer team for an additional year, and also purchase some sewing machines that will go toward their adult education program, where mothers are given skill based lessons on sewing so that they can earn an income from ISF's cottage industry of sewing soccer uniforms for the region's teams. Our sponsored girls' team shirts are also made by these ISF Student mothers.