Cricket reaches refugees in Lebanon and bridges the gap between the sexes and sects

The entrance to the Shatila refugee camp is full of messy power lines hanging in every direction and dozens of green Hamas flags zigzagging above the crowd’s heads that penetrate the narrow streets between the dilapidated buildings that are likely to have seen much better days the camp was founded in 1949.

It is now one of the most densely populated areas in all of Lebanon.

Through the last alley comes a small square where half a dozen old cars sit on top of candy wrappers, cigarette butts and empty soda cans.

There are bursts of laughter from the surrounding building above the square. It comes from the offices of the Al Sama project, where four veiled Syrian girls are excited to tell how the work of an NGO has changed their lives.

Or more specifically, how their lives have changed the game of cricket.

In the office, 15-year-old cricketer and student Maram Al Khodr is the first to share his enthusiasm.

“I’m crazy about cricket!” he exclaims. He says he wants to be a famous cricketer, just like his idol, Australian Mitchell Starc.

A few meters away, Wissal Al Jaber, 14, strongly agrees with Al Khodr that he wants a future in cricket, despite the tension over Al Khodr’s favorite cricket player. Al Jaber prefers Jofra Archer from Rajasthan Royals.

“He’s so good at bowling,” he says with a smile from ear to ear.

Filling the gaps in education

Al Khodr, Al Jaber and more than 200 other young people in Shatila have learned cricket from the Al Sama project (the same means “heaven” in Arabic) over the past three years. In addition to cricket, the organization also offers lessons in English, Arabic, math, yoga and life skills, which, according to founder Meike Ziervogel, feed cricket skills quite well.

“Krketti is very strategic. The thought cap needs to be on. It helps a lot to focus, to concentrate,” he says.

“Kids who are good at cricket are awesome at school.”

Ziervogel and her cricket-loving husband brought the game to Lebanon in 2018 in the form of a week-long camp. At first, hardly anyone appeared. But as the news circulated around the camp, mostly 10- to 16-year-olds began to come in groups. This, Ziervogel says, was a testament to the highly technical and strategic nature of cricket, which children, many of whom had been out of school for years, admired.

Although Shatila was built and is still known as a Palestinian refugee camp, the area is also popular with some 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The migration to Shatila began during the Syrian war, but has also been exacerbated by the current economic crisis in Lebanon, which has resulted in the local currency losing more than 90 percent of its value and driving millions of Lebanese into extreme poverty. According to World Vision, 99 percent of Syrian households in Lebanon now live in extreme poverty. In Shatila, rental and commodity prices are much cheaper than in the surrounding areas of Beirut, making it even more attractive to people outside the traditional Palestinian population.

However, it has not been without problems, and according to Kadria Hussein, the leader of Al Sama, a Syrian citizen who arrived in Lebanon in 2012, there are no sectarian tensions in the organization, which many see as the primary cause of the current crisis in Lebanon. nor was anti-Syrian opinion stemming from those tensions.

Since 2019, hate crimes and arson against Syrians have increased sharply, largely on the basis of the false narrative that Syrians are stealing Lebanese jobs or coping better with the crisis thanks to grants.

“We can’t do better,” says Hussein, who says criticism from the camp that Al Sama is helping Syrian children while Palestinian aid is still scarce is hard to accept. While it is true that the majority of Al Sama’s students and cricketers are Syrian, this is not due to restrictive admission practices. The group has a handful of Palestinian and Lebanese children, he says. Instead, the current demographic structure of students is due to demand: Syrian children often do not have the necessary documents, making it difficult for them to access even schools outside the Lebanese public system, of which they are mostly locked up.

Changing gender dynamics

But assisting Ziervogel in filling the vacuum of Syrian training and assistance was not the only reason why cricket quickly became popular in Shatila.

“They loved it being for girls and boys. It’s not contact, ”he says.

It is claimed that the children in the camp, both girls and boys, are quick to retreat.

“Before I started in Al Sama, my family taught me not to play with the boys and they didn’t let me wear shorts,” Al Khodr says.

“I can’t blame them. That’s how they were taught. But cricket raised awareness among both me and my parents.”

Other girls sitting around her, including Al Jaber, 16-year-old Amal Al Kala and 13-year-old Afrah Al Abdullah, repeat her feelings. Cricket gave them self-confidence or allowed them to overcome chronic shyness and strengthened their communication skills. The girls, like many of their fellow students, come from particularly conservative families where their only desire before cricket was to get married at a young age and be a mother.

Their goals are now much more dynamic, but not all of their families have supported change.

Al Abdullah continues to face domestic violence as he tries to get rid of his family’s expectations of him and says he was beaten whenever he says he does not want to start a family. His situation was exacerbated by his grandfather’s arrival in Syria in December, which forbade him from going outside the house or wearing a top that didn’t go to his ankles. The rules were repealed when his grandfather left, but it was still a reminder of how uncertain his new freedom is.

However, according to the girls, family dynamics are slowly changing, which is partly due to the fact that boys practicing with Al Sama are also going through a change in the world of thought.

“My brother changed his mind [on me playing cricket]. He used to stand with my father, but no more, ”Al Abdullah says.

For Ziervogel, the proof of pudding is eating when it comes to parental support.

“They see the development of the children. Their lives – not just on the cricket ground – have improved significantly. Their school, their behavior. The parents see the development. So we generally have very supportive parents,” he says.

“We have dads and moms who play games. Mothers in particular really encourage their girls. ”

Look forward

Despite the organization’s apparent success to date, both cricketers and Ziervogel say they are just getting started.

The organization is currently operating in Shatila, in the neighboring camp Burj al Barajneh; Bekaan Valley and has recently partnered with a high school in Brummana, a prosperous suburb of Beirut, through which Shatila’s particularly talented students can find scholarships to Brummana High School in hopes of a better education in the future.

The organization has also provided cricket coaching to high school in the hope that games between mostly Lebanese and mostly Syrian teams could allow for better relations between the two groups.

“The world will only have a future if we all play together,” Ziervogel says, stressing that he hopes to continue building cricket pitches throughout the region, with the ultimate goal of seeing the Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian national teams.

Since the organization has only been offering cricket for just over three years, none of Al Sama’s students have gone professional – yet.

But Ziervogel says they are well on their way and the players do not disagree.

“Because of Krket, I feel like a strong girl and I know I can do anything,” Al Jaber exclaims.

Source: TRT World