For her entry to the DukeEngage Reflection Challenge, Linda Garziera T’28 submitted an essay on working with the organization Asociación Deportiva Curundú during DukeEngage Panama. A version of this essay was also published in The Chronicle, Duke’s student-run news organization.
It was a gray day in Panama City, one of those mornings weighed down by the clouds. The banana trees hung heavy and the grass was slick with rain. My Duke Engage group — a team of eight Duke students from all disciplines — was waiting for our community partner inside a small gazebo overlooking the soccer fields. With us was our program director, Javier Wallace, a historian in Duke’s Department of African & African American Studies.
All summer, we would be working with Asociación Deportiva Curundú (ADC), as a part of Duke Engage, a program launched in 2007 that connects students with local nonprofit organizations for a meaningful summer. ADC is a grassroots organization that uses sport, education and nutrition as means to mitigate the issues present in the Panama-Curundú community. We planned to restructure and solidify its soccer program to reach new members, increase its visibility, and collect funds to expand its operations.
One thing was clear from the get-go: we were there to support the organization, not to save it. From the very first day, our understanding of Panama was planned with intention — our program director, Javier Wallace, introduced us to the rich history and culture of Panama City through museum tours, guest lectures and meaningful engagement. By talking to shopkeepers and restaurant owners, eating spicy, unfamiliar food, and learning from Panamanians, we began to understand the fabric of the nation.
Alongside office work, every Tuesday and Thursday, we would gather on the fields of Ciudad Del Saber to play soccer with the kids of Curundú in an effort to get to know the members of the community informally and get a sense of our co-workers beyond words and images.
One such day, the rain led to our usual soccer practice being held inside a gazebo. Our optimism was clouded by the pragmatic reality: 30 kids were coming, squeezing into a room that was 20 feet wide and 30 feet long. In Panama, the rainy season lasts from May to December, and so it seemed like a mystery how coaches were able to train effectively without proper indoor training spaces.
But in fact, Curundú’s experience here only showcases the ingenuity of its community efforts. The neighborhood has been and continues to be a vibrant Afro-Panamanian community in one of the most racially and economically complex countries of the world. It originated as a median between the United States Canal Zone and Panama City — informally planned and with a majority Black or Indigenous population, its culture is unique to its borders.
Despite this, Curundú has always experienced tensions with the rest of Panama City. It can’t shake off the stigma of poverty, racial stereotypes and perceived crime that make it difficult to forge genuine relationships with other communities in Panama. Without this external support, it has been forced to get by on its own.
This experience is echoed by the people of Curundú, as told to us by the ADC’s founders, Andrés Madrid and César Santos. Madrid was nineteen years old when he founded the organization. Without money or connections, all he could rely on was his determination and his best friend. Yet, despite the odds, ADC began operating in June 2014.
At their first try-outs, Madrid told me, they had one ball for seventy kids. They were, at that time, themselves teenagers, scrapping together equipment while working and continuing their own education.
Through soccer, they challenge not only the stereotypes of those who live in Curundú, but also help build the community from the inside out. In their journey to do so, we assisted them in whatever way we could, and whatever way they wanted us to. There were obvious needs: soccer cleats, shin guards, a water cooler, a practice space they could use despite the weather.
But there were also other, more logistical challenges too. The organization needed a bank account to receive donations and the website needed an update to push fundraising campaigns.
By assessing what ADC “lacked,” we were using what in education pedagogy is known as the deficit model, instead of the asset model. Yet, inadvertently, we were reinforcing the skewed narratives about grassroots and marginalized communities: that they don’t have resources to leverage. The deficit model flattens Curundú into a single narrative. The complexity of the neighborhood gets hidden under statistics.
“I came to Curundú thinking I knew how to help. Instead, I found myself learning — from real communities and from leaders — about what it means to challenge traditional narratives and work outside of my comfort zone.”
During practice days, I was often amazed by Andrés and César’s leadership. When it rained, they devised impromptu tic-tac-toe soccer games, capture the flag and foot coordination drills that could be done in small spaces. Each Wednesday — when we would eat in Curundú with the founders’ families — we couldn’t help but notice the number of people who came up to the table. Kids thanked the coaches for practice, alums stopped for a quick word, parents chatted about the summer training schedule and friends and acquaintances greeted us.
We needed to recognize ADC — and organizations like it — beyond their “needs.” Their strengths — leadership, community, talent, determination and resourcefulness — are obvious, and their efforts to break through expectations using their strengths—not measurable tools, but intangible skills, even if they seem “untraditional” are admirable.
This was a key element of ADC’s story too. Their success, like much of their current structure, wasn’t traditional. This is what makes ADC, and Curundú special. Before this past summer, ADC didn’t have a formal database for membership or alumni. It wasn’t as though they didn’t have working systems in place — we were just not used to them. For example, the communications between the coaches and students were via word-of-mouth.
Once we shifted our mindset, once we all stopped overlooking ADC’s assets, using them instead to fuel our work, we were able to move past previous challenges with ease. The “lack” of formal communication tools seemed less problematic when we acknowledged the breadth of informal communication channels and tight knit community of Curundú; with strong leadership among ADC alumni. Finding additional coaches now became easy.
When we eventually reached the end of our time in Panama, we wanted to thank the families of our community partners for welcoming us to their home. We had to make a decision. Going out for a meal forced us to consider childcare, budgeting, tastes and transportation. Bringing a cake to the community erased most of these issues. Ultimately, the right path was obvious. We’d learned to appreciate the characteristics and needs of the community, thinking about it as the residents did, not as Duke students. These community dinners had grown to be our favorite — there was no need to leave Curundú.
What I learned through my DukeEngage experience is that organizations like ADC don’t ask for sympathy. They ask for recognition. Non-profit work asks us to challenge the narratives we’ve absorbed — about neighborhoods, their strengths and what young people from places like Curundú can achieve.
I came to Curundú thinking I knew how to help. Instead, I found myself learning — from real communities and from leaders — about what it means to challenge traditional narratives and work outside of my comfort zone. I thought I would return with an increased set of skills, some “completed” projects to brandish. But not all growth can be tracked by charts and numbers — sometimes it happens at a dinner table, sharing stories and perspectives, eating a slice of Panamanian cake underneath the setting sun.