National Youth Sports Week
Remember how it felt to be a child, running around the yard or playing kickball in the street? To be energetic, excited, and have the urge to stay outside until sunset. As a kid, most of us found that the best way to express ourselves and have fun was to play sports or go outside. In recent years, with the booming technological world, many kids find themselves entertained through technological stimulation; video games, movies, and screens. Does this make a difference in who kids will grow up to be? We don’t know, but what we do know is that research supports tons of different ways that participating in sports as a child can benefit! LtN supports National Youth Sports week by demonstrating exactly how the kids in our program are developing important life skills and having fun through the sport of lacrosse.
Sports have been around for a long time, originating with the Greeks and the Olympics and evolving into the modern sports that we see today. Sports are a huge pastime and are available across all types of media, globally, proving their importance to the world. Sports play an important role in the development of kids too; research shows that there are many benefits to youth sports. Those benefits can include, but are not limited to:
Relay races in Nicaragua
Building Self-Esteem,
Physical Benefits,
Providing Social Interaction,
Teaching Discipline
Building Character, Leadership skills, Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle,
and more!
While youth sports have amazing benefits, they can be challenging and difficult for some kids to engage in due to a variety of reasons among families and children. The most common barriers that prevent involvement in youth sports include:Cost,
Lack of Time,
and Lack of Inclusive Options
By identifying these barriers and advocating for change, you can help bring sports to the youth in your community. Some ways that we have helped accomplish this in our communities and programs are by promoting fun and friendly competition, praising activity, promoting the benefits of youth sports to parents, and being role models. Our coaches and volunteers have done an amazing job helping kids and communities get active and demonstrating exactly why participation in youth sports is beneficial. Other ways that you can promote youth participation in your community include; advocating for safety and accessibility, reducing screen time, encouraging getting outside, participation in different activities, and more!
If you want to do some more reading about Youth Sports and their benefits, we recommend this link! https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/youth-sports-facts
And don’t forget to check out the other ways we’re involved by visiting our social media!
Instagram: @laxthenations
Twitter: @laxthenations
References
http://kidsplayusafoundation.org/benefits-of-youth-sports.html
https://www.superiorhealthplan.com/newsroom/national-youth-sports-week-2020.html
https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/youth-sports-facts/benefits
Maddie's First 6 Months as Panama's Program Director
I have officially crossed the six month mark as a Program Director in Bocas del Toro. It is hard to tell if I feel like I have been here for a year already or just a couple of weeks. Bocas is the type of place that can make you feel at home really quickly but then the next day you realize how much you have left to learn here.
Maddie’s arrival day in Panama.
For example, a friend from the University of Richmond is visiting me at the moment and we went to see a different beach, Bocas del Drago, that I had never been to before. We passed by communities I didn’t even know existed. Embedded deep in the jungle were small schools, a massive (and controversial) housing relocation center, and homes that you could barely see through the thick, Caribbean foliage. But then, this morning, I walked through town and said “Hola” to about 20 familiar faces. Bocas has made me realize that it is possible to know and not know at the same time and even in the same place.
Nothing has had a bigger impact on me than the children involved with Lacrosse the Nations and Bocas Surf Crew (a local partner nonprofit of ours here in Bocas that uses surf as their tool for youth development). When I signed on to work as a Program Director for LtN, my biggest worry was that I was going to have a hard time working with the kids. I thought that I wouldn’t be able to connect with them or they wouldn’t understand me. And I was so wrong. Lacrosse the Nations showed me that I always want to work with kids, and this is just the beginning of that. These children quite literally opened my eyes to opportunity, possibility, and what you can make of yourself if you just put fear aside. They also taught me that you actually can live life as freely as you want to. And it started from the way their parents are. Not like these parents know something that parents in the U.S. don’t, it's more so that these parents worked really hard here to create a business and their kids were often left to do whatever they wanted to with friends and created their own personalities and their own lives. Any kid participating in LtN’s programs is involved because they want to be, not because their parents signed them up. That is the best part of Lacrosse the Nations, it really puts a lot of the responsibility in the kids hands.
Maddie (left) coaching up our kids in Bocas del Toro, Panama.
We as adults can often be made to think that if kids don’t have someone holding their hand and telling them what to do, that they will make the wrong decision or get into trouble. But what is life if you never make the wrong decision? You cannot create experience in that way. I have learned and became a of the part of the message that kids are capable and competent - not only to make their own decisions, but to emerge as critically engaged leaders in their communities. In these past 6 months, LtN has taught me many unexpected lessons. More than anything, I am grateful that in my decision to come here to help others, I unknowingly joined a community that wanted to help me too.
Roberto in the House
Roberto Carlos Téllez, 20 years old, joins LtN’s Coaching Staff after 10 years as LtN’s 2021 Scholar. Get to know Roberto and hear about his story, family, and future dreams:
Baby Roberto in his first LtN practice.
“I am currently in the 10th grade, my favorite subject is language arts, my favorite hobbies are: listening to music, watching action movies and series, comedy, drama, romantics, a little bit of everything, I like spending time with my friends and also play guitar, although I don't have one of my own.
“I learned about the sport of Lacrosse at the La Esperanza Christian School, when it was still in La Chureca, this was in 2010 since then I was fascinated because I started playing it as my first sport, currently what I like most about lacrosse is doing more friends, my colleagues approach me and ask me to teach them what I do, shooting, tricks, catches and other crazy passes, I have also always liked to share with foreign volunteers who always come to visit us, with them I always learn new things, especially tricks and how to move when I play. Being part of LtN for so long has been very special to me.
“I would love to play as a professional, representing Nicaragua for me would be a great achievement and pride, my teammates and I are very anxious for a lacrosse federation to start in Nicaragua. If they offered me to play for another club or federation, I would also like to, but I would put Nicaragua first.
“I am very excited to be part of the LtN staff now, it is an achievement that I did not see coming so soon, the only thing that saddens me is that I will no longer be able to play in tournaments. But I am very excited to teach and continue training other children what I have learned over the years in LtN programs, it is with these programs that I have grown, I have learned to value how much and little we have, to respect each person as they are, to get up if I fall, to persist in what I want and to always give 100% in everything I do.
“About my family, because currently in my family nucleus we are 8, my mother, my grandmother, my stepfather, two sisters and two nephews, my stepfather is the one who works to support us, previously my grandmother also worked as a domestic one block from our house, Unfortunately, a motorcycle taxi ran her over while she was walking on the sidewalk on her way home and broke both her legs, because of this she no longer works. That is why one day I hope to finish high school and then study Marketing and Advertising in order to help my family economically, the main thing is food and try to build the house and distribute the spaces better since we currently sleep more than one in the same room and in some cases more than two in the same bed, I would like to help my nephews to have a very good education and the comforts they deserve, clothes, shoes, toys and others.
“I always hope to have support in my academic, personal and work training and thus achieve my goals and dreams and in some way give it back to other people in the form of gratitude.”
Roberto, you are an inspiration to all of us and we cannot wait for you to continue on your path to meet your dreams. We are so proud.