Bensinle Tep
Dimapur | January 23
A Christian Volunteer, as he calls himself, who in seeking God wants to share the same with the unprivileged through his passion for Football. Aphrezo Krose is a Football Coach based in Mongolia, who has associated himself with sports mission work in Mongolia, thus becoming the first long-time Naga ‘Christian Volunteer’ in Mongolia. He aptly says that he enjoys volunteering because it opens a person more, reaches out to more, and one learns more. Speaking to The Morung Express, the young coach shares his journey of serving God’s love by sharing with people what he does best.
Ever since a young boy, Aphrezo had always had a passion for football. He would play for the school team and even while in pre-university. But he never had the opportunity to play ‘professionally’. Having been born and brought up in Medziphema, he says that to dream of making Football a career was a dream unapproachable because in Naga society parents emphasise more on ‘good grades’ and ‘good jobs’.
However, life took a turn-around when he joined the ‘Youth With A Mission (YWAM)’ in 2001 in Chennai. YWAM is an international volunteer movement of Christians; it is an international organization which provides opportunities to youths to demonstrate their love for Jesus through goodwill missions across the world. So, it all began when in 2007 he went to Mongolia for a Volunteer Mission. He said that while he joined a language school, he volunteered at a Christian Football project during his free time and after spending enough time volunteering at the project, he decided to come up with his own Football project because he had his own goal/mission. His mission was to provide to under-privileged kids, who may not have such opportunities, his knowledge of football.
In 2009, Aphrezo came up with his own Christian mission project, ‘Levit Football Project’ or the ‘Levit Football Club’ (LFC), of which he is coach and manager, based in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The football club, according to him wants to do more than just ‘kicking the ball’. It uses sports to transform personal lives and communities. The Club’s goal is to provide alternative to boys for hanging around on the street, or PC game centres where the dangers of substance abuse are prominent. Besides providing an opportunity to develop football playing skills, he said, it provides the platform to build and develop personal character and teach the importance of teamwork. The Levit Football Club is divided into three teams: the School Team (around 50 boys 8-13yrs; most of these kids are from poor families), the Junior Team (around 25 boys 6-13 yrs), and the Senior Team comprising of around 25 adults who are University students, have just graduated or are working. Regarding the finances of managing the project, he explains that the Senior Team, consisting mostly of students pay a symbolic amount of $2 a month, while the School team and the Junior team do not pay anything because of their circumstances. The whole organization is led by volunteers, hence sometimes the club requires substantial financial support, he stated.
Because his vision was to do goodwill through Football, the activities of LFC, besides football training and playing in various tournaments, are that the teams are sent to volunteer in prisons, alcohol recovery centres, with street kids, and also get teachings on certain topics like alcohol awareness, AIDs awareness, money management, family, personality building and the like.
After he started with his Christian mission project, having not officially trained as a coach, he said that to keep up with the project, he took two different coaching courses, the recent one at Dutch Football Association, Netherlands in 2010.
Lastly, because he reached out to the unprivileged in Mongolia, when asked whether he had any plans for the same kind for kids in Nagaland, he said that because he started the project when in Mongolia, it was difficult for him to make time between two countries even though he really wanted to help. However, he said that whenever he comes back home, he always makes sure that he sets time to volunteer coaching. Whenever he is in Nagaland, he coaches and trains around 30-40 kids in Medziphema, he said. As he is currently in Nagaland, Krose has been occupied with coaching classes last week and will do the same a week before he leaves for Mongolia. “I want to educate football to the kids here the way they would learn it internationally,” said Krose.
