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Athletes Giving Back EXCLUSIVE PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS WITH MESSI LIONEL MESSI: THE BEST SOCCER PLAYER OF ALL TIME? MARTA VIEIRA LORENA OCHOA ALBERT PUJOLS TONY GONZALEZ AND SPECIAL ISSUE SPORTS Business, Integration & Social Change SUMMER 2011 AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG $9.95 IS THE OAS IRRELEVANT? Anthony DePalma on the OAS under Insulza PAGE 34 THE POLICY JOURNAL FOR OUR HEMISPHERE SUMMER 2011 VOL.5 NO. 3 quarterly PLUS ARTURO VALENZUELA on Obama’s Trip SUMMER 2011 Americas Quarterly: THE POLICY JOURNAL FOR OUR HEMISPHERE VOLUME 5, NUMBER 3 Sports in the Americas The 2014 World Cup: Will Brazil Be Ready? Cuba: Sports Diplomacy and Relations with the U.S.
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Athletes Giving BackEXCLUSIVE PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS WITH

MESSILIONEL MESSI: THE BEST SOCCER PLAYER OF ALL TIME?

MARTA VIEIRA LORENA

OCHOAALBERT

PUJOLSTONY

GONZALEZ AND

SPECIAL ISSUE

SPORTSBusiness, Integration & Social Change

THE POLICY JOURNAL FOR OUR HEMISPHERE FALL 2010 VOL. 4 ⁄ NO. 4

SUMMER 2011AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG$9.95

IS THE OAS IRRELEVANT? Anthony DePalma on the OAS under Insulza

PAGE 34

THE POLICY JOURNAL FOR OUR HEMISPHERE SUMMER 2011 VOL.5 ⁄ NO.3

q u a r t e r l y

PLUS ARTURO

VALENZUELAon Obama’s

Trip

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Sports in the A

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The 2014 World Cup:Will Brazil Be Ready?

Cuba:Sports Diplomacy and Relations with the U.S.

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6 Americas Quarterly S U M M E R 2 0 1 1 A M E R I C A S Q U A R T E R LY. O R G6

Sports in the Americas More than a pastime, sports play a multidimensional role in the region. They earn big revenues for sponsors and teams and they link far-fl ung communities. Can they also serve as an engine for social and economic development? Our special section starts on page 48.

COVER STORY: Good Sports

65 Star athletes from the hemisphere highlight their favorite causes:

Mia Hamm (soccer) 66 Lorena Ochoa (golf) 67 Albert Pujols (baseball) 68 Lionel Messi (soccer) 70 Tony Gonzalez (U.S. football) 71

Marta Vieira (soccer) 72

AMERICAS QUARTERLY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMER 2011

VOLUME 5, NUMBER 3

72

Marta Vieira photographed by Ryan Dorsett for Americas Quarterly at the Sahlen's Sports Park during practice with the Western New York Flash, May 26, 2011, Elma, New York.

Opposite page, top: Lionel Messi photographed by Andy Marlin/Getty Images for Americas Quarterly at Meadowlands Stadium during an exhibition game between Argentina and the United States, March 26, 2011, East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Opposite page, bottom: Albert Pujols photographed by Ronald C. Modra/Sports Imagery for Americas Quarterly at the Roger Dean Stadium during the Cardinals’ spring training on March 22, 2011, Jupiter, Florida.

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A M E R I C A S Q U A R T E R LY. O R G 7Americas QuarterlyS U M M E R 2 0 1 1

Features50 Sports PopulismSIMON KUPERFans like their teams—but not necessarily the politicians who support them.

57 Brazil’s Long To-Do ListANDREW ZIMBALISTCan Brazil build the massive infrastructure it needs to host the Olympics and the World Cup?

62 CHARTICLE: Ping-Pong DiplomacyANDRES SCHIPANIIt worked for the U.S. and China. Could it work with Cuba?

74 Covering Sports in Latin America LISA DELPY NEIROTTI AND JEFFREY BLISSThe fi erce battle over sports media rights.

76 Hearts, Minds and Bottom LinesSIMON WARDLEFans and profi ts.

82 GOOOOOL...for DevelopmentFABIAN KOSSGetting kids in the game—and out of trouble.

88 PHOTO ESSAY: Scissors DancersPeru’s extreme sport. Photographs by Nicolas Villaume.

94 Baseball’s Newest Farm SystemRICHARD FEINBERGA Nicaraguan baseball academy offers more than just hitting and fi elding.

96 Baseball’s Recruitment AbusesROB RUCKUnscrupulous agents prey on young Dominican players. It’s time to clean up their mess.

103 Ask The ExpertsDoes hosting sporting events promote social and economic development? Larry Rohter, Mick Cornett, Robert A. Baade, and Marty Markowitz respond.

106 CHARTICLE: Latinos and Hispanics in U.S. and World SportsWILDA ESCARFULLERA brief history of achievement.

108 There But Not EqualJUAN C. CAPPELLOWomen athletes must be promoted and awarded in the same way as their male counterparts.

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in our next

issue:

Impact Investment: When Profi t Meets Social Purpose: Is social investing the next big thing or an overly hyped concept? Plus, the Fall Americas Quarterly examines Argentina’s education system, fi nancing Brazilian social development, transportation networks, hunger in Guatemala, and more.

26

It’s Not Your Grandfather’s HemisphereARTURO VALENZUELAThe U.S. moves beyond traditional diplomacy.

34

Is the OAS Irrelevant?ANTHONY DEPALMAOld burdens, new challenges.

42 Madame Offi cerSABRINA KARIMPeru’s anti-corruption gambit.

3 From the Editor

11 Panorama South America’s Dakar Rally, microcaliente telenovelas, Ten Things to Do in Kingston, and more.

16 Hard Talk Should Latin America expand nuclear energy? Nils Diaz and Marcelo Furtado respond.

22 Innovators/Innovations Juan Pablo Mellado revives Chilean cooking. Oscar Salazar helps executives master social media in Mexico. David Luna pursues grassroots politics in Bogotá. Victor Quijada remakes traditional ballet in Montréal.

114 Tongue in Cheek The best of the region’s political cartoons.

116 Dispatches from the Field: Puerto MaldonadoCaroline Stauffer looks at how discontent in a remote Peruvian jungle town was refl ected in the presidential election.

121 Policy UpdateDarío Hidalgo on bus rapid transit. Kathryn Wade on natural disaster preparedness. Ricardo Cotta Ferreira on Brazil’s agricultural boom.

125 Fresh Look ReviewsJavier Santiso looks at the internationalization of Spanish corporations. Sergio Aguayo reviews Jorge Castañeda’s newest book. Rachel Sieder on security in Guatemala City.

132 Just the Numbers Foreign direct investment in Latin America.

Departments

116

34

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMER 2011

VOLUME 5, NUMBER 3

26

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82 Americas Quarterly S U M M E R 2 0 1 1 A M E R I C A S Q U A R T E R LY. O R G

Five years ago, Lina, a teenager living in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Cali, Colombia, was unemployed and un-motivated, idling away her time at home. Today, at 22, Lina is assistant to the man-ager of a local apparel company, earning

a steady income with social security and pension ben-efi ts. She is also planning to go to night school to study business administration. Was it job training, microfi -nance, or free trade that caused this transformation? No. It was sports.

In May 2000, Henry Kissinger and Edison Arantes do Nascimento (better known as Pelé) appeared together one morning at the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) headquarters in Washington DC. An unlikely pair-ing, the world-famous diplomat and world-famous soc-cer star had something in common: they saw soccer as more than just a game. For both Kissinger—who always carved out time in his schedule to follow a match—and Pelé—the former captain of Brazil’s champion football

team—soccer represented a tool for promoting social and economic development. Their arrival at IDB set in mo-tion a number of initiatives that expanded the IDB’s ap-proach to development and, ultimately, benefi tted Lina.

Pelé and Kissinger had come together for an IDB semi-nar called “The Business of Soccer in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Pelé, who rose from extreme poverty to become one of the world’s highest-paid athletes and later Brazil’s sports minister, gave an impressive analysis of the sport’s potential for the Americas to the star-struck econ-omists and international bankers attending the seminar.

“In the United States, the sports industry generates about 4 percent of GDP,” he explained. “In Latin America, it barely represents 1 percent. If we could get sports up to 2 percent, we would create a lot of jobs and opportu-nities in our region.” Pelé went on to say that, with the help of sports clubs, governments and civil society or-ganizations, sports could also be the best tool for keep-ing kids out of trouble. Kissinger concurred.

Few in the audience needed to be reminded of the

GoOODonors and businesses are realizing the social and

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region’s troubling economic statistics—which today remain stark. According to a recent study on child pov-erty by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 45 percent of children are affected by at least one moderate to severe deprivation, which means that almost 81 million people under the age of 18 suffer from child poverty. Expanding the category to those under the age of 24, the number adds up to more than 83 million people who are victims of violence, poor nutrition, inadequate education, and a scarce job mar-ket. Often excluded from greater society, these young people have been virtually unreachable by traditional social-help programs.

As both Pelé and Kissinger made clear, though, sports can provide a path out. Since that meeting in Washing-ton, the Bank has forged an ambitious Sports for Devel-opment program that collaborates with government, the private sector, foundations, academia, and nongov-ernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote youth in-volvement in sports.

The IDB’s program is grounded in the idea that reaching at-risk youth requires speaking their language—which, in Latin America, often means the language of soccer. The theory is that soccer and other team sports can serve as both a hook and a platform for teaching basic employ-ability skills, including teamwork, discipline, respect, communication, and helping youth focus on results. At the time of the IDB meeting, few comprehensive, tested programs of this sort existed. But in the decade since, a growing body of literature has focused on the correlations between sports and personal development, and sports and social mobility among disadvantaged urban youth.1

One of the IDB’s fi rst Sports for Development initia-tives—a pilot project called A Ganar (To Win/To Earn)—was fi nanced with a two-phase, $7.3 million grant. The fi rst phase was planned in three countries—Brazil (where it is called Vencer), Ecuador and Uruguay—and the sec-ond would extend it to an additional eight countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Implemented by Part-ners of the Americas, a network of nonprofi t organiza-

OOoL… economic development benefits of sports.

FABIAN KOSS

(for development)

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tions and volunteers in the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean, it uses soccer and other team sports to help youth aged 16 to 24 acquire personal and professional skills [see sidebar on p. 87].

A fi nal impact evaluation of the fi rst phase of A Ganar/Vencer has shown positive results. Over 70 percent of par-ticipants graduated from the program, and nearly three-quarters of the graduates obtained formal employment, returned to school or started a business within one year. Moreover, program graduates report fi nding better jobs and more often maintaining em-ployment than their counter-parts who did not participate in the program.

The program’s entrepre-neurial training often reso-nates most with participants, as many of them have not been enrolled in formal ed-ucation for some time and feel unsuited to formal ed-ucation, yet have creative ideas, drive and passion. Euclides Parraga, 20, from Lindo, Ecuador, participated in A Ganar in 2009–2010. Af-ter graduating, he opened a small neighborhood pizza restaurant, Don Pizzetto. Re-fl ecting on the experience, Parraga highlighted the val-ues he learned during the program, saying they had helped him “get along better” with his friends, wife and son. And along the way he earned practical skills like cooking, cocktail-making and speaking English. Most importantly, though, he benefi ted from the leadership training and goal-oriented approach of A Ganar. “Ev-erything that I learned helped set a vision and a goal of what I want to do as a living, and I wanted to have my own business.”

Another of A Ganar’s objectives is to link participants, who have learned many of the skills businesses value,

with the private sector. To that end, it enlisted more than 200 businesses to host internships, hire youth, provide mentors, and sponsor training.

As a result of A Ganar/Vencer’s having trained more than 3,400 youth, in March 2010 the IDB approved a new expanded effort to bring the project to six more coun-tries (Argentina, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Mexico). With additional funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development

and the Nike Foundation, the A Ganar/Vencer alliance has now grown to 11 coun-tries and plans to train over 5,500 more youth in the re-gion by 2012. Specifically, the Nike Foundation’s grant of $2 million—part of its Girl Effect campaign—will provide job and business training to more than 1,500 young women between 2008 and 2011.

Going Long

In May 2007, the IDB scaled up its work in Sports for Develop-ment by joining forces

with the International Feder-ation of Association Football (FIFA), the South American Football Confederation

(CONMEBOL), and the Confederation of North, Cen-tral American and Caribbean Association Football. These huge players in the international soccer world recognized soccer as a tool for developing human capi-tal, technical and leadership skills, and self-esteem, as well as for promoting community integration. Leaders agreed to create more development opportunities for impoverished children and youth in the region.

As a result of this partnership, in 2008 the IDB approved the regional expansion of its original effort, with the dual objective of assessing the potential of sports as a means to promote life skills and prevent violence among youth, and to develop a strategy for the integration of sports-re-lated initiatives and actors across different IDB-supported sectors. The regional initiative supports local NGOs, one of which is Colombianitos, a nonprofi t organization that works in communities affected by drug-related violence,

Fabian Koss currently serves as youth program coordinator in the Offi ce of External Relations at the Inter-American Development Bank.    

Real politik meets real sports hero: Henry Kissinger and Pelé meet in the New York Cosmos locker room in 1977.

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SIMON KUPER Sports Populism

displacement and extreme poverty.Colombianitos launched a Sports for Development pro-

gram in Ciudad Bolívar in 2002, with 500 registered par-ticipants. Today, the organization is active in six regions in Colombia (Ciudad Bolívar, Puerto Tejada, Cartagena, Sincelejo, Barbosa, and Medellín), engaging 4,028 kids in soccer, dance, table tennis—even chess. Indirectly, the program’s impact extends to approximately 12,000 peo-ple, including the parents and families of participants.

The IDB is currently working with FIFA, the Colom-bian government, the municipal governments of Cali and Bogotá, the Coca-Cola Company, Fundación SEDOC, and Fundación Colombianitos to create two Sports for Development centers in Cali and Bogotá. These centers will provide a safe haven for children and youth to prac-tice sports, and will offer programs on nutrition, con-fl ict resolution, education, and health. The centers will be inaugurated during the FIFA Youth World Cup in Co-lombia in the summer of 2011.

As a result of the IDB’s collaboration with global phil-anthropic groups, such as the Clinton Global Initiative, and with sports clubs, such as the Club Atlético de Ma-drid and FC Barcelona, governments across Latin Amer-ica and the Caribbean now recognize the importance of sports as a tool for development. And they have begun to commit public resources to it. For example, in 2006 Paraguay’s Ministry of Education, collaborating with CONMEBOL and the Paraguayan Soccer Association, created an IDB-funded project consisting of a competi-tion to fi nance sports projects for vulnerable youth aged 10 to 17. Uruguayan soccer legend Enzo Francescoli trav-eled at his own expense to Asunción to participate in the program’s inauguration.

Similarly, with funding from the IDB, Bolivia’s Vice Ministry of Housing, the municipal government of El Alto, Trilogy International, Club Bolívar, and Save the Children are currently developing a Sports for Develop-ment project tied directly to a neighborhood improve-ment loan [see sidebar on p. 113]. The project will provide an underserved community in El Alto, a municipality of La Paz, with new fi elds, paved roads, sanitation, and utilities. If successful, it will serve as a model to be rep-licated all over Bolivia.

Collaborating with Bogotá’s municipal government, the IDB organized an international mayors’ meeting in Bogotá in April 2010 to address the latest themes in vi-olence prevention by presenting a series of panels on the effective use of sports as a violence prevention tool. Mayors from Costa Rica to Mexico attended. During the

:VOLLEYBALLFOR UNITY

by Matthew Aho

good sports

Suffolk County, Long Island, a collection

of suburban neighborhoods within commuting distance of New York City, is widely regarded as an affl uent, low-crime area ideally suited to raising a family. In recent years, however, it has become a locus of anti-immigrant sentiment and ethnically motivated violence.

One of the most notorious incidents occurred in 2008, when a group of local young men killed 37-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero. The youths later told police they frequently targeted immigrant day laborers for sport, a practice they called “Mexican hopping.” The incident not only catapulted the county’s racial tensions into the national spotlight, but triggered a 2009 Justice Department investigation into the alleged failure of local police to take hate crimes seriously.

The investigation is continuing. Meanwhile, long-time community organizer Amber Sroka hit upon an idea to ease the tension and mistrust between police and day laborers. She began organizing volleyball games between the two sides at a local church. Police “quickly supported” the idea, says Sroka, who works

with a group called the Unity Project to organize the games.

The fi rst match was held in June 2010 at a local church. Although the cops won, the game was so successful with participants on both sides that a repeat was scheduled three months later. That game proved even more popular. While volleyball was the initial attraction, the real value of the exercise was in what happened after the game: a free-ranging conversation between both sides to discuss their mutual concerns.

“At fi rst there was some mistrust and hesitancy,” said Noah Guillen, a day laborer originally from Peru. “But by the end of the game, we found it much easier to approach the offi cers, and I defi nitely seized the opportunity to voice some complaints.” The police have been equally pleased.

The games are expected to continue. “The issue now,” says Sroka, “is whether we’ll make the switch to soccer.” Although the sport is more popular with many laborers, Offi cer Lola Quesada of the Suffolk County Police says, “some offi cers are hesitant to make the switch. We know full well the reputation of Latin American players on the fútbol fi eld.”

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meeting, Mayor José Reyes Ferriz of Juárez, Mexico, cited A Ganar/Vencer in transforming at-risk youth in his vi-olence-riddled city.

Now Brazil

With two huge sporting events coming soon to Brazil—the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics—the IDB and its partners hope to harness sports and these events

for development and social inclusion.It is estimated that the city of Rio de Janeiro alone

will receive more than $36 billion in state investments over the next six years in transportation, health care, the environment, safety, and sports infrastructure. The IDB is currently developing a strategy for the 12 cities in Brazil that will host the World Cup and the Olympics. From the year 2000 to the date of the events, these cit-ies will have received more than $10 billion in IDB in-vestments, including initiatives in urban development, transportation, sanitation, housing, and social programs.

One test of the impact of these events will take place in Brazil’s poor northeast. In 2009, the IDB approved a $33 million loan to support the Program of Integrated Public Policies for Fortaleza Youth. The project promotes training and cultural, recreational, and sporting activi-ties in Fortaleza, the capital of Ceará state. More than 40 percent of the city’s 721,000 young people come from ex-tremely low-income households, and nearly two-thirds do not work. Close to 40 percent of youth aged 18 to 29 have fewer than eight years of schooling, and 16 percent of kids aged 15 to 17 are not enrolled in school—all too often resulting in a lapse into criminality.

To solve these problems, most of IDB’s lending to For-taleza has been to build six state-of-the-art sports and cultural centers in poor areas of the city, and to fi nanc-ing training and cultural and social activities in those centers. The IDB is also helping develop the municipali-ty’s capacity to deliver services and education on healthy lifestyles to youth aged 15 to 19, with the ultimate goal of reducing unplanned teen pregnancies by 10 percent.

Statewide, and also with IDB fi nancing, the Ceará state government is implementing the Program to Support the Development of Children and Adolescents (PROARES). This program is promoting public safety by supporting 16 sports centers, 10 socio-educational electronic net-works, four youth service centers, eight social assistance referral centers, and more than 16 child education cen-ters. PROARES offers tutoring, dance, recreation, sports, and art, as well as health and social assistance services.

The fi rst phase of the PROARES program—with a total investment of $70 million—showed remarkable results. School enrollment rose, and grade repetition, malnu-trition and infant-mortality rates dropped. The second stage of PROARES, with a total budget of $96 million, has started and will construct and equip youth centers for sports, social welfare and educational activities.

A Deep Bench

After more than a decade working in this area, the IDB is now working through its mem-ber countries to share best practices and know-how. For example, having successfully

hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 2002 World Cup (with Japan), South Korea, a new donor member country to the IDB, is eager to lend assistance to Sports for Development initiatives in Latin America.

Through the Korean-IDB Poverty Reduction Fund, Korea’s government has pledged $1 million to support soccer-based initiatives for excluded youth. The initia-tive is receiving $755,000 in counterpart fi nancing from FIFA and is being implemented by the Argentine founda-tion Fundación Fútbol para el Desarrollo (Football Foun-dation for Development) and the South America arm of “streetfootballworld,” a global network of soccer-for-de-velopment initiatives. To date, it has funded 20 projects in 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries.

South Korea is also giving the IDB grants so that of-fi cials and experts who planned major sporting events in South Korea can lend advice to their Brazilian coun-terparts ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olym-pic Games.

But it isn’t just about soccer. In the latest multilateral effort to promote social transformation through sports, the city of Rio de Janeiro, the IDB, FC Barcelona Foun-dation, and the National Basketball Association (NBA) created the Alliance for Sport and Development in April, 2011. This alliance seeks to strengthen 18 Vilas Olímpi-cas—sports and community centers—in Rio de Janeiro. Managed by the municipality of Rio and the secretary of sports, many of the Olympic Villages are located in fave-las, where the alliance aims to teach children confl ict resolution and violence prevention through sports, while also providing access to education and health services.

Soccer legend Ronaldinho, NBA star Leandrinho Bar-bosa and ex-volleyball player Ana Moser have all thrown their support behind the alliance, which has the poten-tial to benefi t 140,000 people from the most vulnerable areas. Ronaldinho told those present for the alliance

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GOOOOOL…for Development FABIAN KOSS

launch that “sports is an incredibly healthy motivator for everyone at every level.” The NBA will provide train-ing and workshops through its successful NBA Cares and Basketball without Borders programs. The FC Barcelona Foundation will implement its Social Care and Cohesion program, which teaches solidarity, teamwork, fairness, and social inclusion.

Since that scene over a decade ago when Kissinger and Pelé met in the IDB, there has been growing recog-nition—and support—of sports as a tool for social and

economic development. That concept dates back to the ancient Greeks, who gave us the Olympics. As govern-ments, donors and businesses are discovering, “sound body, sound mind” extends beyond the individual to the national and global body politic. As former Uruguayan soccer star Enzo Francescoli has said, fútbol “can be an incredible tool to make the bigger ball—the globe—a much better place for so many.”

FOR SOURCE CITATIONS SEE: WWW.AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG/KOSS

:A GANAR by Nina Agrawal

good sports

Finding a job is rarely easy for anyone. But for young peo-

ple lacking basic job skills or opportunities to prepare themselves for the profes-sional world, the task can seem frustratingly distant.

A Ganar, created by the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank in 2005, uses sports to help put jobs within reach of disadvan-taged youth. But A Ganar is “not a sports program,” says Paul Teeple, director of Sports for Development at Partners of the Amer-icas, the primary imple-menting organization. “We are a youth employment program wrapped up in a soccer ball, a baseball, or whatever it might be.”

A Ganar, (meaning “to win” and “to earn”) com-bines soccer and other team sports with job train-ing to help low-income young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 over-come a vicious cycle: lack-ing professional skills and training, they are rejected by employers which, in

turn, denies them oppor-tunities to gain those skills and reduces their moti-vation to continue trying. Prior athletic experience isn’t required for partici-pation. “We’re looking for motivation more than any-thing else,” says Teeple.

The program has four phases. The fi rst consists of sports training at least

three times a week with A Ganar “facilitators”—coaches, teachers or so-cial workers who exploit “teachable moments” in sports to foster discipline, respect, teamwork, and communication. For exam-ple, after Carlos Tevez—then a striker for Brazil’s Corinthians team—dis-puted a female referee’s

call in 2006, facilitators di-vided players into teams to debate whether the Argen-tine soccer star was guilty of gender discrimination.

The second stage teaches technical and en-trepreneurship skills and offers career counseling. This training—designed and executed with busi-nesses, NGOs and voca-tional institutes—focuses on high-growth sectors like information and communi-cations technology. Next, participants get experience through paid internships at partner businesses.

More than 4,000 young adults have completed the program’s fi rst three phases. Over 70 percent of graduates have achieved “success” as the program defi nes it: entering the for-mal labor market, starting one’s own business or re-turning to school.

A Ganar wants to do bet-ter. “If we do well, more employers [will] come looking for our graduates,” says Teeple, and more young people will get hired.

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