STORE 
MY BEACH SOCCER 
The Beach Soccer Foundation and Al-Noor Training Centre for Children with Special Needs came together the morning of November 6th at the Dubai International Marine Club
On a beautiful morning set among the amazing skyline of Dubai and in the midst of the Samsung Beach Soccer Intercontinental Cup Dubai 2014, children with special needs and players had the pleasure of playing beach soccer together. Bruno Xavier of Brazil, Alan of Portugal, Ali Karim of the UAE, Ozu of Japan, Morales of the USA, Leonov of Russia, and El Mahrouk of Morocco, generously took time out of their days to teach the kids some beach soccer moves and also play a friendly match with children and players on both teams. The end result was a glorious outburst of emotion with everyone involved leaving with a smile on their face. Ozu, who works with children in Japan, went as far to say, “I could feel their (the children’s) emotions and it was happy, that made me happy, especially for my first time working with special needs kids.”
One of beach soccer’s aims is to bring together community work and the game itself, which is exactly what the players and officials did today. Charitable work such as today’s clinic is key in helping out any community and it means just as much to the players as the children, Ali Karim professed, “I tried to volunteer when I was younger but did not have the chance and for me it was always a dream, like something only on TV. I loved it, it was like something out of the movies, I could help the less fortunate forget and make them happy at the same time.”This marked the first time that Al-Noor and Samsung, along with the Beach Soccer Foundation came together with many of the children getting the opportunity to play beach soccer for the first time, though you could not tell with some of them having more than perfected their shot and more importantly their post-goal celebrations. Samsung has long been a partner with beach soccer and the union between the Beach Soccer Foundation and Al-Noor, which whom Samsung has been involved with since 2010, was inevitable.
Al-Noor was founded in 1981 with eight students and currently they help and have almost 250 students enrolled this year. They are based out of Dubai but their services are for everyone, ranging from locals to Mexico to the Philippines and everywhere in between. In addition to the Samsung Beach Soccer Intercontinental Cup, Samsung helps the special needs centre with yearly fundraisers and quarterly activities, such as the one this morning, which is a great treat for the kids, Alan went on to say, “It is very nice to see the children smile and know that I helped with that, they are all so happy and that is what is best for me.” The children were indeed happy as you could hear them talking in awe, saying, that’s the star of America, or, he’s Brazil’s star, can you believe it? Smiles were in no short supply and future activities will be just as emotional.
