Livermore couple's nonprofit uses soccer to uplift communities in Paraguay, empower girls and young women
Girls in the Bay Area and Paraguay are empowering each other thanks to a Livermore-based nonprofit that a couple began with a decades-old promise kept.
Longtime youth soccer coach Walter Pratte and his wife, Pamela Jacobsen, have a clear goal: to empower girls on and off the soccer field.
"If we can change one, we can change thousands" is their motto. The couple connects with girls through soccer, then expands the game plan to education and leadership.
Their work began with a promise the Argentina-born Pratte made more than 30 years before, when he played semi-pro soccer in Paraguay and the people in an extremely poor community took him in.
"I made a promise that one day I was going to come back and help the community that gave me so much back in the time," said Pratte, former coach for the Rage Girls Soccer Club and Foothill High School girls soccer in Pleasanton, and Granada High School in Livermore. He currently coaches at Pleasanton's Ballistic United Soccer Club.
In 2016, Pratte and Jacobsen led a mission trip back to the impoverished town with several other families from the Bay Area. Jacobsen, a photographer, came home with more than pictures.
"I couldn't come back and not be part of change and a solution," she said.
The couple kicked off Girls Soccer Worldwide in 2017. Their nonprofit travels to Paraguay to give girls opportunities they never had to play soccer and equip them with life skills to rise from poverty.
"Lots of times these girls were either being taken out of school to provide care for their siblings or go to work," Jacobsen said.
"Education is the medicine for poverty," Pratte added. "If we teach a kid how to become better in life, they're not going to need from anybody."
Girls Soccer Worldwide provides food, school supplies, scholarships, and even builds homes for girls in rural Paraguay. Teenage girls and youth soccer players from the Bay Area become the nonprofit's "ambassadors," raising $3,200 each to travel on a nine-day mission held every year.
More than 100 ambassadors have touched the lives of thousands of girls, like Maria Lujan. The nonprofit renovated her family home. She was awarded the first GSWW scholarship and became her family's first high school graduate.
Today, she helps run the GSWW ambassador program in Paraguay as she studies to be a psychologist. Teenage ambassadors like high school senior Margaret McKay return from the mission ready to do more.
"It's a great feeling to make a difference for these families, to feed them, clothe them, and give them opportunities for education, especially girls who are my own age," said McKay, who plans to pursue studies in public policy in college.
Girls Soccer Worldwide also runs a grassroots leadership program in underserved Bay Area communities. Participant Diana Zarco conquered her fear of public speaking and recently gave a speech that made Jacobsen and Pratte proud.
"I think they're amazing people," Zarco said. "I love how they inspire others. They've inspired me."
College freshman Cecilia del Rio said she learned leadership qualities that will serve her well in her goal to become a teacher.
"I've learned how I can show empathy, to be a good person to empower girls," del Rio said.
The stories of change inspire the couple to keep going.
"We truly do believe if you can give a girl a voice, and teach her to use it with that right purpose in mind, she has the power to change the community from within," said Jacobsen.
"It's an addiction. Once you start helping, you don't want to stop," Pratte said. "Once you see the smile on a kid, you don't want to stop."