MILAN – Jeison Murillo has the affable smile of someone very much at peace with life.
He has, after all, realised the dream of countless children around the world. Yet the fact that Murillo is now one of the best defenders in Serie A owes a great deal to his upbringing and to his unfailing ability to ensure sheer desire saw him through every stage of life.
Murillo’s journey to the heart of the Inter defence might have hit a roadblock had it not been for Inter Campus. Because although football was always his ultimate goal, the life of a kid from Cali doesn’t always pan out the way it’s supposed to.
Murillo’s story began in the Andre Sanin area of the city of Cali. His love for football grew on the tough streets of that city, much as it does for any other kid of five or six. Every scrap of ground became a football field – the school yard, the road outside home, the local park.
When the Inter Campus project arrived in Colombia in 1999, Murillo was one of the first youngsters to get involved. Though he was barely seven years old, the months Murillo spent working with Inter Campus helped him believe – and taught him just how important it was to fight for what you love.
An important part of the Inter Campus ethos is to develop the person as well as the player, and the Murillo of 2016 is a well-mannered, humble man. His humility is genuine, the product of a simple home life: "There was always food on the dinner table in my family, but we had to fight every day to get it," recalls Murillo.
Inter Campus now works with 500 boys and girls between the ages of six and 13 in Cali, Nariño and Chocó. The aim of the project is to fill the children’s free time with healthy, constructive activities that help to keep them away from drug trafficking and guerrilla warfare.
"The aim of Inter Campus goes beyond football," explains Murillo. "They’re focused on the human beings, their personalities and on all those values that youngsters need to develop. Aside from football, the goal is to help them reach their potential.
"I think the work Inter Campus and Inter are doing is exceptional. It would be great if this kind of thing happened everywhere. During my months with Inter Campus we learned to have more confidence in ourselves. They taught us values that are important to everybody. We were very young and we always tried to understand what they were doing for us."
Murillo also speaks about the visits Inter staff would make to the project, something that would give the children a real thrill: "They instilled positive values within us and we applied them in our families, in our day-to-day lives… we soaked them up constantly. We couldn’t wait for the Inter delegations to visit because they brought new impetus and real joy. It was always fun when they tried to speak to us in a language we didn’t know."
It was the matches against other Inter Campus sites that enabled the young Murillo to begin imagining himself pulling on the Nerazzurri shirt for real. And so it is little wonder that Murillo responds gratefully when we suggest he could become an Inter Campus ambassador in the future.
"That would be an honour. Whether now or when I retire, I would be proud to help children in need – I’ll always try to be a set a good example. It’s so important to teach children to respect themselves and those around them. You should never stop being humble – that’s what allows us to keep believing and to achieve big things."
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