Karanba Football Club Changes Lives

By Juliana Tafur, Editor & Publisher

RIO DE JANEIRO – It’s Monday mid-day and football practice is about to begin at the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Leme. 18-year-old Anderson Alves Brito comes out of the dressing room with a black and white uniform, matching football shoes and knee-high black socks.

Ice water, vitamin C and bananas await him – a minor motivation for a young man who goes to practice for four hours every day. He belongs to a football club called Karanba, which aims to educate people and create social progress through sports.

“Karanba is my life,” says Alves. “I have friends who are dead or imprisoned, because they chose the wrong path. But Karanba has kept me away from a life in crime,” he adds. Alves comes from a Rio ‘favela’, or slum. Four years ago Karanba founder Tommy Nilsen saw him playing football and invited him to join.

“I’m not looking for the youngsters who are already responsible, but the ones who want to change their lives,” says Nilsen. “And the wonderful thing is that I really believe Karanba allows the boys to believe in themselves and know that there’s hope for a better future.”

Nilsen is a former top division professional football player. Born and raised in Oslo, he played for LYN until a serious knee injury suddenly ended his career at the age of 25. Soon after, he traveled to Rio, fell in love (with a Brazilian and with the city) and decided to move here a year later.

Karanba was born in 2005, after Nilsen realized that despite the country’s wonders, more than 20 million Brazilians live in extreme poverty. Nilsen aims to provide children in these marginalized conditions with a recreational outlet, where they can learn good values and life lessons. And for Nilsen, the work goes way beyond the soccer field.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, says Orlando Algueira Filho, who’s the grandfather of the club’s goalkeeper. “Tommy [Nilsen] knows every boy, has contact with the families and is aware of their problems. He makes sure that they’re doing well in school and that they have food on the table every night.”

Nilsen is humble enough to admit that this is all true, but during soccer practice on Monday I got to see first hand the responsibility he assumes with every youngster. After a boy called in sick, Nilsen asked him to show up at practice so he could be examined. Upon noticing that the boy’s eyes had a yellowish coloring, he was sent to the hospital – all costs on Karanba.

“See,” says the goalkeeper’s grandfather, “what did I tell you?”

At the beginning of the year, the club trained 250 children between the ages of 11 and 18, coming from twelve of Rio’s marginalized slums. But recently, Nilsen and his team of educators had to cut down the team to 36 players. “It was a very hard decision, but it’s the only way we’re able to provide the personalized attention they need,” Nilsen says. Plus, the selected ones will travel to Scandinavia next week, where they’ll participate in the Norway Cup, the Dana Cup and the Gothia Cup – for the fourth year in a row.

Nilsen is convinced that traveling with the children outside of Brazil is the first step in making them believe that the sky is the limit. “I was 15 the first time I traveled with Karanba,” says Alves. “I never imagined I’d travel to Europe. It was unbelievable. I still remember that first airplane ride. Once in Norway, I noticed how clean and organized it was and I loved the weather.” He stops, and then adds: “I just forgot about everything and lived the moment.”

Alves dreams to play for Manchester United one day and is hopeful that during his time in Scandinavia someone might take a professional interest in him. As for Nilsen, he thinks his team stands a chance of doing well in the tournaments, but emphasizes: “The trip isn’t about scoring goals and winning games. Instead, it’s about showing the boys what the world has to offer, by allowing them to experience something completely different from their daily lives in Rio.”

If you’d like to learn more about Karanba, please contact Nilsen at: tommy@karanba.com or go to the club’s website: www.karanba.com