Tampa United's Cambria Kuipers Making Impact in Nigeria

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Aug. 29, 2024) – When Tampa United Volleyball’s Cambria Kuipers first decided to collect old volleyball gear from local clubs and school teams to donate to Samaritan’s Feet Youth Volleyball Mission, she never imagined she would be able to see the impact of her work first-hand in Nigeria.

That is exactly what happened this summer when she and her father Renz joined two members of the mission to help distribute gear and engage with the local youths playing volleyball in Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria.

How it Started

“At my first Plant High School team meeting, our coach said that if we were wearing shoes that we just wore during club season we needed to get new ones because the shoes would have been overused and worn out. At the time I was ecstatic to pick out the latest colorful new pair, even if there wasn’t a tear, scuf or uneven soles in the shoes I wore for just seven months. We do a lot of recycling in my family, so I thought it might be a good idea to collect my teams’ shoes and find somewhere to donate them,” Kuipers recalled. “After looking around on the internet, I found Samaritan’s Feet Youth Volleyball Mission. From there, I started asking for volleyball-related donations from other high schools, colleges and clubs over the years and dropping them off at the headquarters in Charlotte (N.C).”

The mission is to help more Nigerians out of poverty by way of sport, specifically volleyball, with the idea that if they learn to play well enough, they could have the opportunity to be the first person in their family to attend college through volleyball.

Ibraheem “Coach Ib” Suberu is the program’s leader and serves as the head coach of Club North Volleyball Club in Kansas City, Mo. He grew up in Nigeria, receiving his first pair of shoes at age nine, and went on to play for London Malory VBC before moving to the U.S., where his coaching career has spanned more than 20 years. There are about 400 youths in the program in Nigeria with local coaches to ensure sustainability in addition to an annual tournament Suberu runs.

“Instead of my annual 590-mile drive to Charlotte to drop off all I collected, Coach Ib asked me to go on a 5,900-mile trip with him to Nigeria to distribute donations to the neediest and assist with coaching volleyball clinics,” Kuipers explained. She talked it over with her parents and as her father said, they ‘jumped right on board.’

Visiting Nigeria

“It was really amazing to see all the different club teams shirts and shoes that I had collected from teams in the Tampa area make it all the way to Lagos, a city I didn’t even know existed three years ago,” Kuipers stated. “Part of me started to feel guilty because I take for granted that each club season I have received bags of new gear every season. Then here in Lagos, these kids were jumping up and down excited to get a used jersey with someone else’s name on it.”

She anticipated being able to watch the annual tournament run by Subero, but did not know she would be able to do hands-on work as a coach, working with a U13 boys team that included boys wearing shoes Cambria donated the year before. She also saw youths with jerseys she had collected from her teammates and took photos to show her friends that their jerseys were being used.

“I never thought when I started doing this it would lead me to go to Nigeria. I was so excited to be invited and didn’t know what to expect. Once I got there and saw the ‘gym’ it was hard for me to hold back my tears in front of the kids. They played on a concrete slab, with no roof and a beat-up net. I wanted to give these kids every bit of volleyball knowledge I had, to help these kids grow in the sport to increase the small chance that they have to get out of the immense poverty they are stuck in,” Kuipers said. “I didn’t want to fail them, and it felt good to put to use some of the volleyball IQ I have had drilled into my head the last eight years and figure out what words they would be able to understand through a language barrier.”

“Never the Same”

“My eyes start to swell when four young boys stepped on the cracked concrete court, all wearing my ‘old’ volleyball shoes. It was the best, most pure moment of my life, yet I felt extremely guilty. Coach Ib was right when he told me, “Once you go to Nigeria, you will never be the same,” she described.

Though the spoken language presented challenges, she noted there was a greater form of communication. “Our smiles and laughter were universal. We share a passion for the same sport and these athletes helped me realize how lucky I am. I have come to understand that the world is bigger than Tampa and poverty affects billions of people around the globe. It is real and tragic that most consider ‘someone else’s problem,'” she stated.

Looking ahead after her senior year of high school, Cambria said she is looking forward to translating the skills she learns in college to help improve lives and manifest actionable change, just as she has seen Suberu do.

“There has yet to be a day where I don’t think about my trip and the kids I connected with. One boy in particular named Abi was given my favorite pair of colorful Kyries. Every day I pray that he is able to reach his full potential in those shoes and make it out of the poverty he was born into. I am hopeful that this mission has inspired teams throughout the country to not blow through three pairs of shoes a season, but to save all of their items so it may be useful for the less fortunate across the globe,” she said.