NARGIS
Until just months ago, Nargis Attaiee had never held a hockey stick.
“When I came here, I didn’t know what hockey was! When I started playing, I started having fun. It was really, really fun. That was something very, very different for me. I’d never heard about it, I never played or knew about it when I was back home.”
Nargis and her family recently came to Canada as refugees, fleeing Afghanistan.
Edmonton became their new home.
Part of the process when Afghani families arrived in Edmonton was staying, sometimes for over a month, in a hotel.
This was a quarantine period during the height of COVID-19 and then a time to wait for more permanent housing.
While in the hotel, Nargis started hearing about the Free Play program.
The organization had set up a special program for Afghan kids during the mornings, so they could get a break from the hotel.
Free Play staff would pick them up on a bus and bring them for 4 hours of play, crafts, snacks and lunch.
“I was coming two or three times a week in the morning,” Nargis says.
Then, “After our stay in the hotel when we (moved) into our apartments and our houses… [I got an email asking if] I wanted to join Free Play (permanently) every Thursday after school.”
That Thursday program is Free Play’s “Pathway to Leadership” program for youth ages 13-18 to continue playing sport, but also learning how to be a leader in sport. Youth pick to either focus on soccer, basketball, flag football or hockey.
Nargis picked hockey. A sport that she had little to no knowledge of growing up in Afghanistan.
“That was something very, very different for me. I’d never heard about it, I never played or knew about it when I was back home.”
She loved it and was thriving in the hockey program, so got asked yet again to do more at Free Play. This time she was asked if she wanted to keep growing her skills to work as one of the Junior Leaders at Free Play’s summer camps for kids ages 8-12.
Nargis plays with, and mentors, kids as part of the support staff. Specifically, she loves helping with her new favourite sport: hockey.
“The fun part is when I play something with the kids and I don’t know how to play [the game], then they teach it to me, and they feel really good with that. They feel like they are the boss. It is really great. It’s amazing. I’m learning a lot from the kids.”
Nargis says she’s also learning a lot about her new home from the kids and the experience at Free Play. “The culture, the names, are so much different than my own country,” she says.
She also knows she is part of something special. She understands that organized sports for kids are costly, and many families have similar or identical stories to hers.
Nargis says she is proud to be providing kids with the ability to not only enjoy playing sports but, through play, building important experiences and memories that they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives.
“When kids are coming to you, telling you ‘play with me’,” she says “and you’re going to hang out with them, it’s like during your own childhood. I think that I am helping kids to enjoy the best moments of their lives, come here, and have fun. Especially when kids cannot afford paying for the sports… Especially for people who are newcomers, it’s like you [belong] somewhere. I really appreciate that.”
Written by Stefan Salegio
