Soccer clinics at Walter Reed in Bethesda and DC United field for military patients

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- When a devastating 7.0 earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in January 2010, the country's already meager health care system was immediately overwhelmed. Help came quickly from the United States, in the form of the U.S. Navy's hospital ship USNS Comfort, and a huge tent hospital set up on land immediately adjoining the Port-au-Prince airport by Project Medishare for Haiti, a charitable medical organization established by doctors at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine in the 1990s.

In the months that followed, Project Medishare worked with a group of young men who had lost limbs in the earthquake to establish an amputee soccer team, known today as Team Zaryen. The team is now cosponsored by Project Medishare and the Knights of Columbus, which donated $1 million for the construction of a complete prosthetics laboratory and amputee rehabilitation program at Project Medishare's Hospital Bernard Mevs in Port-au-Prince.

Next week, Team Zaryen will travel to Washington, DC to offer thanks for the American military's post-earthquake relief assistance by conducting amputee soccer clinics with U.S. service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and at a practice field at RFK Stadium, where Washington's professional soccer team, DC United, plays.

The "Haitian Inspiration Tour" was formally announced at a news conference in Port-au-Prince yesterday (October 12) In addition to three days in Washington, it will feature a visit to Hartford, Connecticut, where the team will meet Governor Dannel Malloy, a soccer clinic with students in Stamford, Conn., and a visit to New York. Team Zaryen will offer brief demonstrations of amputee soccer during professional U.S. soccer games in Washington (DC United vs. Portland Timbers, Wednesday, October 19) and New York (New York Red Bulls vs. Philadelphia Union, Thursday, October 20).

A special web site has been created for the Tour (www.haitianinspirationtour.org), as well as a special Facebook page for the Healing Haiti's Children program (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Healing-Haitis-Children/110782362364272).

SOURCE Knights of Columbus

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