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Soccer Without Borders has received a $100,000 grant from Together Rising to support its work of using soccer as a vehicle for positive change, providing under-served youth with a toolkit to overcome obstacles to growth, inclusion, and personal success. Together Rising is a non-profit organization that transforms collective heartbreak into effective action. SWB is honored to partner with Together Rising, which was founded by best-selling author and activist Glennon Doyle and whose board includes soccer legend and equality activist Abby Wambach.
This significant funding will allow SWB to invest in the urgent needs of the youth currently participating in its core programs and grow its Global Goal 5 Accelerator, a program focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality, which advances gender equity by getting more girls in the game and more women in coaching positions.
With year-round, holistic programming in five U.S. states, Nicaragua, and Uganda, SWB serves 1,200 girls ages 5-20 annually, 70% of whom are refugees and new immigrants. Many experience compounding challenges of healing from past trauma and displacement, as well as the increased risks of gender-based violence that refugee girls face.
“We have seen first-hand that soccer can be a powerful vehicle to advance gender equity, while simultaneously strengthening the skills and supports that enable individual girls to reach their full potential,” said Soccer Without Borders Co-Founder Mary Connor. “This support from Together Rising could not come at a more important time, as young people in our programs and across the world are navigating the isolation that has come with Covid-19.”
The grant from Together Rising will provide program support to SWB’s direct service activities across all programs but particularly Nicaragua, filling funding gaps caused by the pandemic. It will also enable increased investment in the SWB USA Global Goal 5 Accelerator, which takes a collaborative approach to advancing gender equality through soccer and sport-for-development organizations. Soccer Without Borders is proud to partner with Together Rising at such a critical time.
About Soccer Without Borders
Soccer Without Borders uses soccer as a vehicle for positive change in the United States and abroad. Soccer Without Borders combines soccer play and instruction with education and community-building activities in a year-round program model that authentically shifts outcomes. Soccer Without Borders’ impact has been recognized by the global FIFA Diversity Award, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Sports Award, and the Wharton School of Business’ Lipman Family Prize.
About Together Rising
Together Rising is the non-profit organization founded by Glennon Doyle that exists to turn our collective heartbreak into effective action. In a world where crises abound and heartbreak is in every community, people who want to help often don’t know where to turn. Together Rising is where to turn. Whether it’s pulling children out of the sea outside the refugee camps in Greece, helping abandoned kids on the streets in Indianapolis, establishing the first opioid recovery home for pregnant teens in New Hampshire, building a maternal health wing in Port-au-Prince, providing a single mother access to breast cancer treatment, or keeping a foster family’s heat on in Texas — Together Rising identifies what is breaking the hearts of our givers as they look around their world and their community, and then we connect our givers’ generosity with the people and organizations who are effectively addressing that critical need. Since 2012, Together Rising has raised over twenty-seven million dollars, with a most frequent donation of $25.
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