When my family moved to the big city of Tucson after spending six years on the Navajo Reservation, my brother and I were thrilled to enroll in the local youth soccer league. On the Rez, the only opportunity for playing organized sports required riding around in the back up a pickup truck at high speeds to travel to baseball games, which our parents were not keen to sign us up for. The official looking jerseys, weekend games and halftime orange slices of our AYSO league underscored just how much our lives had changed. And while we missed the Rez, this was one change we were more than happy to sign up for.

Fast forwarding fifteen years into the future, I took a page out of my parents book and moved to a rural, poor area with the goal of making a difference. In my case I moved to the tiny, dusty town of Neno, Malawi to work for Partners In Health , a healthcare nonprofit. Ever since that move to Tucson I’d always found community around some form of organized sports. One of the first things I did after arriving was help start a soccer team at the hospital which would compete in the local adult league. The guys were serious about soccer and I had a great time, although my skills of passing the ball neatly along the grass did not translate well to the ping-pong-like style of play necessitated by the much rougher pitches in Neno.

Thinking back to how much AYSO had meant to me and my brother, I couldn’t help but notice that there were no opportunities for local kids to play organized sports. There was plenty of informal pickup soccer happening (often using a wadded up ball of paper and tape), but not much more than that. So, I contacted a friend who taught at the nearby elementary school to see if he’d be interested in working with me to start a youth league.

I was full of ideas and more than happy to share them. I envisioned a league much like the ones I’d grown up with, with multiple teams in multiple age groups in each school. There would be practices during the week, and games on the weekend. Local secondary school students would volunteer as coaches. A few balls, maybe some jerseys, a couple of whistles, and we’d be off and running, right?

Not quite. Unsurprisingly, it turned out that many of the things I took for granted weren’t the same in Neno. The teachers and secondary school students explained to me that most kids lived very far from school and had to walk a long distance each way. If we tried to hold after school activities, only the kids who lived close to town would be able to take part. And many of them were busy with chores and homework in the afternoons. Also, while I was keen to break down gender barriers and invite the girls to play soccer alongside the boys, the girls actually wanted to play netball, which was the sport for women in Malawi .

What we actually needed to do (they politely explained to me) was organize occasional tournaments on the weekend. That way, kids could walk to the games from far away. We might not be able to have multiple teams per school, but we could invite other schools to play. And we’d need money to buy food for everyone, since they’d be spending the whole day away from home.

And it worked! We held tournaments once a quarter, with a budget of $500 for each. This covered food, supplies, and small stipends for the coaches who were otherwise unemployed and looked at this as more job opportunity than volunteer activity. 13 regional primary schools took part in soccer, netball and athletics, with a trophy being awarded to the school with the most victories at the end of the day.

The kids loved it, and I’d hear from them anytime I travelled around the region. The coaches got a lot out of it too. They had an opportunity to organize something and make it their own. Some weren’t interested and dropped out, but those who were stuck with it and made a big difference. I formed close friendships with them and was even able to help a few of them with resume writing and letters of recommendation. And, while I worked on many cool things during my three years living there, this little extra curricular activity of mine remains my favorite memory.