You Are Worth More Than Many Sparrows!

When you are a refugee you lose everything: home, friends, identity, country, your basic rights and sometimes family as well. Then, if you are not allowed to work in the country you flee to, you lose perhaps the most valuable thing of all: self worth.  Restoring the feeling of self worth to refugees is one of our aims at Christian Action.  Sometimes, all it needs is a ball!

You can pass a ball to win a point. You score a goal and you did it yourself. That point or that goal gives you pride and something to talk about for a time. In competitive games you can forget your worries and be yourself. You can even be trained to coach others!

One of the world’s largest law firms, Clifford Chance, has been a great supporter of our efforts to provide sporting activities that will give refugees an opportunity to regain their self worth. Additionally, Football for Life, which is dedicated to bettering the lives of underprivileged children in HK through sport, has provided the transportation for weekly training sessions for our children and has offered opportunities for refugees to receive football coaching.  

On 10^th May these two organizations worked with our Service Centre to stage the first ever Clifford Chance Charity Football Tournament to raise funds for Christian Action and Football for Life. 

The tournament featured an array of well known and former professional stars including Mustapha Hadji (former Coventry and Aston Villa player and 1998 World Cup for Morocco); Didier Six (former French international footballer) and David Terrier, (who last played for West Ham United and Newcastle United in the English Premier League).  A Kowloon police team, which works hard on building good relationships with refugees and asylum seekers, entered to show their support.  A number of professional organisations and a dedicated group of volunteers provided valuable support, and our African drummers added to the energy of the day! In fact our football team has won three cups out of six tournaments, so what about challenging your corporate or local team to a match?

Without all our supporters we’d have difficulty maintaining 20 different humanitarian programmes for refugees and asylum seekers who, as non I.D. holders, are not allowed to work in Hong Kong.  We want traumatized people of every nationality to gain confidence and above all, a sense of self worth as they face the future.  Thank you for your support!

Jesus said, “So do not be afraid; you are worth more than any number of sparrows.”

(Matthew 10:21)

See a gallery of images from the event at:http://bit.ly/kzBR8M

Photography courtesy of http://kennethlimphotography.com