Among the mountains and steep ravines of the Sierra Madre Oriental, a sport flourished to change the paradigm of childhood in Tarahumara community from the municipality of Guachochi, located in the state of Chihuahua.
Thanks to the national program of Flag Football driven in unimaginable corners of the country by the NFL Mexicoschool dropout rates have considerably decreased in the Cieneguitas telesecundaria.
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Now, the young people walk every day for more than two hours through the forests to reach Cieneguitas, where they have perfected their skills with the ball through training promoted by the league in that town.
The Tarahumara athletes, or as they call themselves ‘rarámuri’, which means runners on foot, found in the tochito a refuge from the problems of the region. “Sport runs through our veins. Playing girls and boys on the same team was what interested me the most,” said captain Kimberly during the documentary ‘El Sueño de Cieneguitas’.
Raúl Hernández, Cieneguitas coach, arrived in Guachochi without knowing what to expect, but found “everything I had been looking for in my career. Young people with vision, character, born athletes with a lot of talent that I can develop.”
It seems to me that the biggest challenge is to bring the program to more communities throughout the country. With a country as big as ours, it is not an easy task.Jesús Álvarez, director of the NFL Mexico program
Next to the Sierra, with the help of lime, he set up a field where a dream began that has no limits among its protagonists. María Elizabeth Delgado, director of the telesecundaria, recognizes that flag “is a sport that can do great things for children. Let them open doors. In Guachochi there is a lot of need, low-income children who have to go to work and do not return to school.”
In addition to the office of the NFL MexicoLocal authorities also collaborate so that this program reaches communities like this one and many others. Indigenous villages Throughout the national territory.
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A commitment to the new generations
The program Tochito Flag of the NFL in Mexico It impacts thousands of children throughout the country, which had a second start after the stoppage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The objective in these communities is precisely to offer it to boys and girls as a form of physical, safe, and fun activation. Leave a positive mark on communities
Jesús Álvarez, director of the NFL Mexico program
The league’s commitment goes beyond promoting the discipline to an Olympic sport as will occur in Los Angeles 2028, it involves reaching communities with fewer opportunities to practice the sport.
“It is a program that has been very well accepted in communities in some states around the country (Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Yucatán). Boys and girls in communities in these states find playing Flag just as fun as children in the rest of the country. What they want is to have fun and precisely our program offers fun physical activation with values such as; teamwork, discipline, respect and above all gender equality,” said Jesús Álvarez, the manager of the NFL Mexico program.
“The objective in these communities is precisely to offer it to boys and girls as a form of physical, safe, and fun activation. Some agencies such as the Sports Institutes in each state have helped us enormously to bring the Flag Tochito NFL program to more and more children in search of leaving a positive mark in these communities,” he added in a conversation with the ‘Diario de los Deportistas’.
But the task has been complex. This is a tough challenge that takes years and yields positive results for all parties involved.
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“It seems to me that the biggest challenge is to bring the program to more communities throughout the country. With a country as big as ours, it is not an easy task, but with the joint work of different institutions we could take small steps little by little. And the Cieneguitas community is a great example of the positive impact we can achieve. In this particular case, I would like to recognize the Chihuahua Sports Institute for its valuable support in this work we are doing,” explained Jesús Álvarez.