UPDATE: West Vancouver barber ships soccer joy to refugees

UPDATE: West Vancouver barber ships soccer joy to refugees

UPDATE: A FundAid campaign supporting Michel Ibrahim’s cause has recently been launched. Donations can be made here .

UPDATE: A FundAid campaign supporting Michel Ibrahim’s cause has recently been launched. Donations can be made here .

UPDATE: A FundAid campaign supporting Michel Ibrahim’s cause has recently been launched. Donations can be made here.

Over the last two decades, Michel Ibrahim has equipped some 15,000 kids in 24 countries with soccer gear and his roster continues to grow.

The West Vancouver barber is currently collecting donated jerseys, shoes, balls, nets – “anything to do with soccer” – to send to Syrian children living in refugee camps in his home country of Lebanon. “I think we’ll be able to help at least 1,000 kids,” Ibrahim says, adding that Air Canada has agreed to transport the donations from airport to airport at no cost.

Ibrahime, a diehard soccer enthusiast, says the sport brings joy to children, even in the face of hardship.

“There’s a special relationship between the soccer ball and the kid’s foot,” he says. “Anytime you see a kid with a soccer ball, you can connect a smile to his foot, and you cannot see that with hockey or baseball or golf or volleyball. There’s a uniqueness about the game and also there’s the simplicity of the game.”

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Ibrahime was inspired to start his donation drives in 1993 when he returned to Lebanon for the first time since leaving the war-torn country. During that visit he saw a group of children kicking a beat-up ball around the pavement. “It was a very sad situation, so quickly I ran to the nearest soccer shop and I bought full gear,” he says – enough shoes, jerseys, shin pads and balls for 20 kids.

“I made a soccer field for them to play right on the concrete,” he recalls. The following day 40 kids came out to play. The next year, Ibrahime returned to Lebanon with enough equipment for 200 children and he has continued to donate soccer gear to underprivileged kids around the world ever since.

Active in the North Shore soccer community, Ibrahime plays on a team and coaches with the West Vancouver Soccer Club. His teammates and many of his fellow coaches have been big supporters of his collection campaigns over the years, he says.

He plans to visit Lebanon in December where he, along with the Red Cross and members of a soccer academy for orphaned children he established in 1997, will personally deliver the donated gear to the displaced Syrian children. Donations can be dropped off at West Van Barber Shop, located at 1345 Marine Dr., until Nov. 15.

Original article here

Come for a trim, stay for the coho

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West Vancouver philanthropist barber collecting donations for Beirut

West Vancouver philanthropist barber collecting donations for Beirut

Michel Ibrahim was in his barbershop on the morning of Aug, 3 when his phone began ringing non-stop. It was friends and customers mostly wanting to express their condolences about the disaster in Lebanon. It was then he turned on the TV and learned about a devastating explosion in the Port of Beirut.
The Lebanese Canadian barber and philanthropist lost many friends and relatives in the blast, which leveled neighbourhoods near the port and damaged buildings for kilometres around.
“My nephew works for the Red Cross in Lebanon and he’s seen it, hands on. People falling into the sea. People fall off their balconies. Buildings falling down, full of people,” he said. “The damage. The agony. The stress. The fear. The destruction is unthinkable.”
Two of his friends – a customs officer who worked at the port and a doctor who raced to help victims after the first explosion – are among the missing, Ibrahim said.
His two nieces who live in apartments less than a kilometre away from the blast site had all of their building’s windows blown out, and there is no guess as to when the power will come back on. And his sister witnessed her neighbours thrown from their balcony.
“They’re in shock. They’re devastated. They are having nightmares from that blast,” he said.

Prior to coming to Canada 30 years ago, Ibrahim lived in the small town if Jebjannine, about 40 kilometres inland from Beirut. His 97-year-old uncle was outside there when the blast shook their home. The senior immediately went into cardiac arrest and also died, Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim said there is so little trust between the people and the government, which is widely perceived as corrupt, he does not accept their estimates for how many people have been killed or remain missing. Ibrahim said he puts the blame for the explosion on government corruption and Lebanon being forever caught in a proxy war between Iran and Israel.
Now the West Vancouver philanthropist is doing what he always does when there’s a humanitarian crisis – turning his barbershop into a fundraising hub.
Ibrahim estimates the money he’s raised for relief efforts following earthquakes, wars, forest fires and floods is into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And over the last 28 years, the foundation the rabid soccer fan started has equipped and brought the beautiful game to more than 15,000 kids in close to 30 countries, often those living in refugee camps.
But this is the first time he’s found himself collecting donations to benefit people in his home country.
His family owns two houses in Jebjannine, which he has asked his sister to make available to people left homeless from the explosion. International estimates say there have been 300,000 people displaced.
Any donations he collects now will be given to the Red Cross. He also has 1,000 soccer jerseys he will be selling out of his shop for $10 each.
“This money – 100 per cent will be going to the victims’ families in Lebanon,” he said.
Since word has spread, Ibrahim said he’s had hundreds of people come into his Ambleside barbershop to express their condolences, which he has found touching. On Saturday, one regular customer pledged $20,000. Another, who works for a consulting firm downtown, said they were so moved, they donated $350,000 to the Red Cross.
“I’m very proud of these people who pour their energy to help such a small country like Lebanon,” he said. “Everybody in Canada who will give $1 to help the crisis… a million thanks to them.”
Ibrahim is also challenging the Lower Mainland’s Lebanese community – about 5,000 people according to the last census – to join him in finding ways to help out at home.
“They can go to the Red Cross. They can come to the shop. We need help. This is a disaster. This is catastrophe for Lebanon,” he said.
Donations can be made via the Red Cross website or at the West Van Barbershop at 1345 Marine Dr.

Original source North Shore News

West Vancouver barber looking for soccer donations for kids in Syria

A West Vancouver barber needs your help with his lifelong campaign to have soccer help the lives of displaced Syrian children. Elaine Yong has the story.

For a West Vancouver barber, soccer is more than just a beautiful game.
Michel Ibrahim, owner of the West Van Barbershop, has proven through a soccer academy he created in his Lebanese home village years ago that the sport can also be a lifeline for displaced and orphaned children around the world.
Cutting hair for more than two decades, it would be an understatement to say Ibrahim is a soccer fanatic. Not only does he play several times a week, he also coaches and sponsors two soccer teams.
On top of his involvement in the Lower Mainland, he also spreads his love of soccer all around the world. It all started when Ibrahim was on a trip back home to Lebanon in 1993 and saw a group of kids playing soccer with only one patched up ball.
” The next day I go to the nearest soccer shop [and] I buy 10 balls, soccer jerseys, shorts, socks, even shin pads and nets,” Ibrahim said.
“And I make a makeshift soccer field right on the concrete and the kids start to play. From that moment, I established my mission and my love to do good work.”
Over the years, Ibrahim has collected equipment to give to more than 15,000 kids in 24 war torn and underdeveloped countries.
His current project is gathering enough gear for 700 Syrian refugees.
“In the war, kids are the vulnerable victim,” said the 53-year-old.
“As they say, truth is the first victim, in the war, it’s always the kids.”
It’s something Ibrahim knows firsthand — he lost his father and two brothers to wars in Lebanon and they left behind a dozen children. It’s why Ibrahim tries to make as many personal deliveries of the soccer gear as he can.
“The smile on the kids is worth a million smiles from any people,” Ibrahim explained.
“When you hand a soccer ball to a kid, always you see the impressions, the happiness, the excitement of his face. And that excitement doesn’t have an expiry date. The feeling I can’t describe. But joy, you do it from the heart to the heart. From us to them.”
Ibrahim will be taking soccer donations until November 15 at the West Van Barber Shop located at 1345 Marine Drive [Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.].

~ with files from Elaine Yong

Source: GLOBAL NEWS