The Denver Post - www.denverpost.com
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
By: Monte Whaley
GREELEY, CO - Families fleeing political or religious persecution in Somalia and Myanmar have streamed into two local schools over the past two years, and sometimes the two groups haven't gotten along.
"There has been some disharmony," said Meghan Belaska, who works with refugee families for Lutheran Family Services of Colorado. "We were just looking at ways to get them to work together as a team and have a common goal."
The goal, as it turned, is soccer.
The international game is being used to teach group cohesiveness and responsibility to about 80 Somali and Burmese boys and girls this spring. Their mentors are players of the Colorado Force — northern Colorado's women's pro-am soccer franchise — and the youth soccer club Storm Academy FC.