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Romana's history, goalkeeper of representation
of Polski.At present the vice president of
Sports Assiciation for Social Integration
"Barka", boss of soccer section.
I came
to the Barka Foundation in 1997 with a full
baggage of problems such as losing my house,
worsening relationships with family and friends.
At the beginning I did not fully realise the
seriousness of this situation. I thought that I
would be able to quickly solve those problems
and that they would disappear as fast as they
came.
Despite of my participation in several
integration programs and interacting with people
in similar life situations, I was not able to
pull myself together. I came to realise that
alone I would not be able to achieve a
significant progress in my life. The objectives
which I pursued were becoming less and less real. |
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Then I came across the street soccer idea. At
the beginning I treated the game as a pure
entertainment, which allowed me to forget about
my own problems at least for a moment.
I started my adventure with the street soccer in
2003 completely accidentally. When I was 15-16
years’ old I was keen of playing football with
my colleagues and I was even not a bad player.
Also, I always enjoyed to watch games, mainly
when the Polish representation was playing. I
was not isolated in my interests, because
football is a very popular sport worldwide.
In Barka I was acquainted with the street soccer
team and was told that if I wanted I could come
for practice. At that time Jacek Czaplinski was
responsible for the team and he has had already
the occasion of participating with his team in
the Homeless World Cup in Austria. His passion
for the street soccer struck me. I became a part
of the team and it I enjoyed it a lot. I
remember that my skills for playing by that time
were deplorable because I did not play football
since I was 15-16.
Since
after some time of playing I noticed some
development in my skills I started to treat this
sport in a more serious way. The first
tournament, in which I had the occasion to take
part was the Polish Cup in Pleszew. There, after
arriving at the place, I actually saw what type
of street soccer was this. My debut in the team
was very successful. From one side our team has
won the 3rd place and from the other side I was
engaged to play in the Polish representation of
the street soccer.
For the first time in my life the objectives,
which I pursued for long, started to become easy
to get to. Then, also for the first time, I
realized that something that not long ago was
impossible could be achieved through heavy work
on myself.
Since then I started to work on myself with even
more enthusiasm. I settled two objectives: one
of them was the return to the normal life as I
had some time in the past and the second was the
football and the travel to Scotland for the
World Cup.
This was an tremendous period in my life because
everything started to knock together. I started
to get to know many admirable people, I renewed
my contacts with my family and started to seek
for a flat and the driving motor for all was the
street soccer play.
I participated in the HWC 2004 in Gotenburg. I
did not travel there with the objective of
achieving success because I was convinced that
the changes that already took place in my life
were already a great success.
After arriving at the place and starting to play
in the tournament I understood that a human
being should place to him/herself every higher
crossbar and at the time pursuing the aimed
objectives. The atmosphere in Sweden was
terrific. I had got to know many players, who
have had similar problems to mine. I never
thought that so many people all over the world
may have the same type of problems as I have and
even more serious. I was fascinated with this
event and I liked very much the whole idea.
By the end of the HWC in Gotenburg I brought to
Poland both sport and life successes. By then I
was already sure that with hard work and passion
to something that we are doing it is possible to
achieve a lot.
By then the Sport Association started to be
created. In this association, together with my
hearty colleague Jacek Kaczmarek we are acting
to show to our participants that through sport,
enthusiasm and hard work many things can be
accomplished. However, before any of our
activities started I have had also the occasion
to take part in the HWC in Scotland. To this cup
I had been preparing myself in a very special
way. I was aware that this was my last cup and
was thinking on what I would do after.
Then the idea of a street soccer league, which
we are presently running, was born. I travelled
to Scotland already as a self-confident person
aware of what I was doing. I was conscious that
sport success would be very difficult to be
achieved but, from the other side, what was
happening in my life because of my participation
in street soccer was that I became a different
person.
That
was a fantastic tournament. We achieved the
sport success which we placed to ourselves and
at the same time this was a consecutive victory
of work on myself.
After coming back to Poland together with Jacek
we are engaged in the work in the Sport
Association to enable to show to other people a
better way in life. We have in front of us many
plans to put into practice but the work in the
association shows that lots of goals may be
accomplished.
Presently I am the person responsible for the
preparation of our team from the sport side and
I think that for many young people I am an
example of how it is possible to get on well
again.
all photos by Jacek Kaczmarek |