Her life in an overcrowded Palestinian refugee camp is besetby street fights, power cuts and grinding poverty, but for a few days this week11-year-old Rayan is enjoying star treatment on the football pitch with aManchester City academy coach. "When I play football, I forget all aboutmy problems," Rayan says with a smile before hitting the dusty pitch onthe outskirts of Beirut where Alan Dixon of the Manchester City FootballAcademy is running training sessions.
Rayan is one of some 200 footballers aged between six and 17attending the four-day camp Dixon is hosting for Palestinian and Lebanesechildren, who are not only learning new techniques in the world's favouritesport but are relishing a rare chance to have some fun. For many of thoseliving in the squalid camps and gatherings life is a daily struggle, and forchildren, there is barely space to play.
But those are not Rayan's only problems. "Some peoplesay us girls shouldn't be playing football at all. But we don't care," shesays, adding that football helps her stop thinking about problems and to focuson her passion. "What has impressed me is that I've seen some really goodfootball over the past few days," says Dixon, a former Oldham Athletic FCdefender, who believes the children are learning much more than only newfootball techniques.
"You learn a lot of life skills through football,"says Dixon. "You are part of a team, and you have to deal with manydifferent people. You need to communicate." Though the activity lasts justa few days, for the children it is "a dream come true," says ImanOmaiss, mother of three young footballers aged 14, 12 and 10, who arrive at thefield dressed in bright yellow Brazil t-shirts.
Older teenagers have also joined the sessions, gettingrelief from the hard work they do in order to survive in expensive Lebanon. "Ileft school a couple of years ago," says 17-year-old Ibrahim, who sports aReal Madrid T-shirt and who plays in flip-flops -- as do some of the othersattending the training. Despite his weariness, he heads out immediately to playfootball, which for he and his friends is an escape from a daily routine ofwork and stress.
