Friendly football with foreign friends
By Jamie Melbourne-Hayward
This week is Refugee Week, and to kick it off last Sunday a Football match?was staged between the Refugee All Stars and an invitational team made up of local councillors. Hutt City Councillor Ross Jamieson laced up his ?on loan? football boots to join the invitational team. He says his ?elderly? selection was good in terms of breaking down age barriers, but not much else as he doesn?t consider himself a golden boot. ?I gleamed at soccer when I was six to nine-years-old, and then I went to play rugby and hung up my boots at 38. ?They need some quick substitutes to bring on, football is the international game for many of the refugees?,? Mr Jamieson says. The invitational team has been thoroughly dealt to by the Refugee All Stars for the past three years, so this time round they enlisted the help of Wellington United football players. The Refugee All Stars team consisted of players from Myanmar, Somalia, Iraq, Eritrea, Sudan, Colombia and other countries. ?There are an awful lot of preconceptions based around refugees, some become a doctor which is wonderful and then others become a drag to our welfare. ?There is a polar gap between what can happen, and we have got to get it right with immigration policy,? he says. Mayor Kerry Prendergast kicked off the match at 11.15am, and radio personality Nick Tansley commentated. The invitational team will included Porirua Deputy Mayor Litea Ah Hoi, and Wellington City Councillors Rob Goulden, Andy Foster and Celia Wade-Brown also took their place in the side. Refugee Services Aotearoa New Zealand hosted the match, in partnership with Wellington City Council and Wellington United AFC. The global theme for this year?s World Refugee Day is ?Real People, Real Needs? as set by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Refugees are innocent victims of war, persecution, discrimination, racism and oppression, forced to flee their homeland for nothing more than their ethnicity, religion or beliefs. World Refugee Day is on the 20 June.
