Our goal is to create in Israël more opportunities for girls who want to play football, on the way doing so we want to educate about the values of different back grounds and believes. We have staff members and players of many different backgrounds.
I (Levia van Ouwerkerk) am born in the Netherlands and all my live played soccer, in 2009 I moved to Israël and realized how fortunate I have been growing up in the Netherlands, growing up there made it possible to play football freely, in school, with the boys and there where teams close by for girls. I have never been bullied that I liked to play football, and I took that for granted. Arriving in Israël made me realize this. I played in Israël also 12 years in the first league and the Israeli national team. Now I retired playing myself and want to make a better future for girls who have the dream to become a football player. My parter Dovrat van Ouwerkerk is born and raised in Israel, she is also a football player but had a completly different experience then mine. She had to fight to be taken seriously and she experienced many times that she needed to sit outsit because "girls don't play football". Dovrat played for 3 years in the first league of Spain, in the Israeli national team and multiple teams in the Israeli first league. Together we where considered one of the best players in Israel. Dovrat also retired from playing herself and it's her goal in life to give this new generation what she didn't get. Besides football she is a strong believer in the importance of education, she highly stimulates her players to be good students. We connected with an organization who helps athletes from Israel to get a scholarship in the USA, and we have contacts with agents from Europe. We want to give our players all possibilities and options to follow their dream and to play all over the world, hand in hand with getting educated. Which start already from a young age here in Israel, Israel has many cultures and different religions. We have noticed to trough their daily life and school they aren't thought much about the differences of eachother and how to respect and value one another. This we wanted to change, trough sport, football they will learn about each other's backgrounds. We have staff members of Jewish background, Muslim background and Christian background. Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis, Ethiopian Israelis and Russian Israelis. The same counts for our players, we are the most multicultural women football club in Israël. At the moment we have league teams of all ages until adult women who play in the 3rd league. Our goal for next season is to open the first academia for girl football players, they will live, study and play football together in Meir Shefya (next to Zichron Ya'akov).
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