36 soccer coaches trained in life skills

(Caracas, October 21^st, 2013. La Dorita Sports Center in Petare was the setting where more than 250 boys, girls, and adolescents of the Sucre Children's Soccer Community League celebrated the achievements of the SOMOS program, a goal for Caracas, which encourages opportunities for development through the promotion of soccer as an alternative for inclusion and social cohesion.

The program is a regional initiative of CAF, Development Bank of Latin America, jointly with the Right to Play Foundation and the Special Olympics Foundation. 

During the first phase of the project, 36 coaches, sports technicians, and community leaders were taught through training modules with the objective of teaching the participants, through live sessions, a comprehensive human training to improve their physical, intellectual, and emotional development.

Following are the training modules that were implemented during the first twelve months of work: Motivation; Leadership; Strategic planning; Respect and coexistence norms; Discipline; Effective communication; Equal opportunities and gender differences; Health, sexual and reproductive education; and Life project.   

During this stage, values were promoted among the boys, girls, and adolescents of the community of Petare, such as the desire to improve; respect for one another; tolerance, team work; responsibility; honesty, and loyalty, among others. 

For the beneficiaries of La Dorita Sports Center program, this has not only been the base for sports actions, but also a gathering place to implement the initiative that expects to train 5,000 boys, girls, and adolescents in Venezuela during the next five years.

SOMOS, a sports network for the development of Latin America, is carried out in Venezuela through a trilogy made up by the Fundación Amigos del Deportivo Petare (Friends of the Petare Sport Center Foundation), Proyecto Paz Latinoamérica (PPLA) (Latin America Peace Project) and the Fundación del Deporte para el Desarrollo (FDPD) (Sports for Development Foundation), which got together to create "A Goal for Caracas" and join SOMOS.