UPDATE: A FundAid campaign supporting Michel Ibrahim's cause has recently been launched. Donations can be made here.
Over the last two decades, Michel Ibrahim has equipped some 15,000 kids in 24 countries with soccer gear and his roster continues to grow.
The West Vancouver barber is currently collecting donated jerseys, shoes, balls, nets - "anything to do with soccer" - to send to Syrian children living in refugee camps in his home country of Lebanon. "I think we'll be able to help at least 1,000 kids," Ibrahim says, adding that Air Canada has agreed to transport the donations from airport to airport at no cost.
Ibrahime, a diehard soccer enthusiast, says the sport brings joy to children, even in the face of hardship.
"There's a special relationship between the soccer ball and the kid's foot," he says. "Anytime you see a kid with a soccer ball, you can connect a smile to his foot, and you cannot see that with hockey or baseball or golf or volleyball. There's a uniqueness about the game and also there's the simplicity of the game."
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Ibrahime was inspired to start his donation drives in 1993 when he returned to Lebanon for the first time since leaving the war-torn country. During that visit he saw a group of children kicking a beat-up ball around the pavement. "It was a very sad situation, so quickly I ran to the nearest soccer shop and I bought full gear," he says - enough shoes, jerseys, shin pads and balls for 20 kids.
"I made a soccer field for them to play right on the concrete," he recalls. The following day 40 kids came out to play. The next year, Ibrahime returned to Lebanon with enough equipment for 200 children and he has continued to donate soccer gear to underprivileged kids around the world ever since.
Active in the North Shore soccer community, Ibrahime plays on a team and coaches with the West Vancouver Soccer Club. His teammates and many of his fellow coaches have been big supporters of his collection campaigns over the years, he says.
He plans to visit Lebanon in December where he, along with the Red Cross and members of a soccer academy for orphaned children he established in 1997, will personally deliver the donated gear to the displaced Syrian children. Donations can be dropped off at West Van Barber Shop, located at 1345 Marine Dr., until Nov. 15.
