Vancouver Whitecaps FC are honoured to have Ali Mohammad from Canada SCORES as Kid Captain of the club's home match against Austin FC at BC Place on September 4.
Canada SCORES is a registered Canadian charity that provides free after-school programming of soccer, poetry and service-learning to 200+ students through partnerships with 12 schools across Burnaby, Surrey and New Westminster.
Ali is originally form Syria and has been living in Canada for four years. Before moving to BC, Ali and his family left their home and stayed in a refugee camp surrounded by thousands of other refugees for two years. It was a huge transition for Ali and his family to move to BC and they truly appreciate the lush greenery and the welcoming people in Vancouver.
The Canada SCORES program could not have come at a better time for Raul as we think about the challenges that people faced during the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Raul first joined Canada SCORES, he was excited about the soccer portion of this program, but was unsure about the poetry or the community project portions. During his time at Canada SCORES, Raul started to love poetry because he discovered another platform where he can express himself. He ended up being one of the students representing his school at the Red Carpet Poetry Slam event organized by Canada SCORES. This opportunity increased his self-esteem as well as his confidence of speaking out loud in front of an audience. For the community project, Raul and his team identified gender equality as the social issue that they wanted to address and created posters to raise awareness for this important issue.
Before the match, 'Caps club legend and ambassador Carl Valentine and Prawnsiders member Claudio Arato will be celebrating our Kid Captain in front of fans at BC Place.
