Inauguration by Farley Flores, AFJA Honduras

Inauguration by Farley Flores, Program Director (Honduras)

March 1, 2020 | San Francisco Del Valle, Honduras

“ I saw a father with boots, long sleeve shirt, and cowboy hat walking alongside his daughter who had just played soccer.”

(Watts, CA) I was coaching the Locke high school soccer team when I first heard about AFJA. I went to that high school and I have been involved with their soccer program after I graduated from Tufts University. One of the AFJA team members wanted to talk to the players about donating gently used soccer gear to send to El Salvador. I had never heard about AFJA’s soccer academies, but I knew that I wanted to get involved right away. 

I had done something like AFJA when I was in college. My soccer teammates and I used to get prototypes cleats from New Balance by being part of the Tufts Men soccer team. Most of the times we had some extra pairs of shoes so every time I could pack an extra luggage full of cleats and take it with me to Honduras to give them away. After my first trip I knew that I wanted to keep helping people with soccer and education and it was amazing to find out that AFJA did just that. 

After my initial approach to them, I was put in contact with Steven Cruz, founder of AFJA. He and I talked here and there for about a year before we actually meet up with him and the rest of the AFJA team. We went to a Cuban restaurant in Korean Town and it was amazing that even after I showed up 45 minutes late because of the parking situation, Steven, Vitelio, and Kelly were there super excited to meet me. We had such an incredible conversation discussing how the organization started and how it had progressed in a few years. I was surprised to see how well we connected in such short amount of time. Maybe it is our connection as 4 latin@s trying to change the world, maybe it is the mutual values that we shared and respect that we have for our culture. But I left that restaurant feeling super enlightened to be able to join forces with my now friends and start the soccer academy in Honduras. 

I originally had planned to opened up the soccer academy with AFJA in my hometown named San Marcos de Ocotepeque, Honduras. A year before my meeting with AFJA, I had proposed the idea to the public school’s director of San Marcos and he seemed excited to take on this opportunity. However, there was no follow up after my initial meeting with him. After I mentioned this issue to my closest friends in Honduras, one of them mentioned that maybe we should open the soccer academy in San Francisco del Valle, Honduras. This is a neighbor town to San Marcos and I did not think twice to offer the collaboration to them. I told one of my closest friends, Yester Mejia (who is now our local director in Honduras) to see if there was any interest by the local school and kids in San Francisco to pursue such opportunity. Yester was very proactive and within a matter of days he had obtained support from the local school as well as the major of the city to help us in starting the project together. I was surprised to see how quickly the people had come together to work in the best interest of the children. 

Once we had the interest set up by both parties, the people in Honduras as well as AFJA, Steven and I were able to coordinate a lot of the logistics behind the foundation of the soccer academy in San Francisco del Valle, Honduras. The volunteers in Honduras decided to call it AFJA-de Asís. Last December I was able to make another trip to Honduras to see my family. While I was on vacation, I was also able to come to El Salvador to meet up with Steven and see their clasico matches in Ateos. We were able to put pick up some initial gear and materials for the inauguration of the academy in Honduras.

I came back to Los Angeles after Christmas and we started planning the logistics behind the inauguration. I was unsure whether I was going to be able to be there, but thanks to the support from my family, I was able to make the trip and take some additional soccer cleats and gear for the girls. We had decided that our academy was going to start only with girls and although we were only aiming to have 20-25 girls, we ended up having around 40 girls in our first team. We believe that women do not receive the same support as men when it comes to soccer in Honduras and we are trying to start a change and provide more opportunities for women. (love this sentence)

On the day of the inauguration, I was so impressed by how much effort Yester and the other coaches had put to organize the entire event. They had received support from a local businessman to pay for a marimba group which is a tradition in the area. They had also obtained access to the main stadium in San Francisco to do the inauguration. The girls were told to be there at 9 am and by 9:30 we had all the girls with at least one of their parents present which is incredible in our culture. We also had other people present who just wanted to see what was happening there. We started the event a bit late, but I was relieved to see how much support the coaches in Honduras had received. The girls’ parents were all there as well as players from the local team. Alvaro, who made the trip from El Salvador to capture the event for us, was also impressed how much support we had from the local people. The event concluded with the girls receiving their soccer cleats and they were super excited to try them on and they decided to play a game. It was hot and humid by the time they finished their game, but you could see the excitement on their faces. After that, the group of coaches had also organized a small snack with natural juice for the kids and they all enjoyed that post match. I could have not pictured this day going even better thanks to all the effort made by the coaches and local people of San Francisco del Valle. 

I feel blessed to see the girls’ happiness and humbleness. I was once in their position and I had wished that I had received more support growing up. Now that I have the opportunity, I will not let this chance go by. For the rest of my life I will carry an image that I saw once everything was done for the day. It was almost 2:00 PM when we wrapped up and I saw a father with boots, long sleeve shirt, and cowboy hat walking alongside his daughter who had just played soccer. They were probably going to walk back home for another 45 minutes, but I was just so moved to see a father making the trip all the way to San Francisco to support his daughter playing soccer.