Raphaella’s homelessness stemmed from running away from someone who was “pimping” her for almost four years throughout Las Vegas, Reno, and Sacramento.Street Soccer Sacramento and the Homeless World Cup gave her a new perspective on how to live life and be fully present and confident within herself.
She was abused, physically, and mentally, sex trafficked and completely separated from her friends and family.
In 2008 Raphaella became addicted to painkillers and used them throughout her pregnancy. Unfortunately she and her second child after 14 days of giving birth, all while fighting with CPS for the custody of her oldest daughter.
“I never fully healed after my son passed away, I was introduced to the gang, I almost lost my life four or five times,” says Raphaella.”The point that said “this is it” was when my partner put his gun in my mouth, I thought I could make it if I escaped and try to at least save my child.”
Women who experience domestic violence often have difficulties leaving their partners due to fear, Raphaella stayed with her partner for so long because of coercion.
“I couldn’t do it before because I thought he was watching me all the time, and every time I had tried to run away before I got bruises and broken noses, and split heads,” says Raphaella.
She ended up in prison for solicitation and had a confrontation with a guard who beat her into a coma. After recovering from this coma, Raphaella knew needed to make a change.
“It was a three-day coma, when I woke up my speech wasn’t full,” says Raphaella in tears. “I was facing assault charges on an officer, luckily they saw the tape and let me out, but I went right back to my pimp.”
This incident gave her a new perspective on life and enabled her to get out of the situation she was in.
“Everything began changing when he called me and said “bxtch where you at?” it didn’t feel so welcoming anymore,” says Raphaella. “The problem when you get into those situations is that you get so deep in, it’s hard to see a way out. I got away from him and started going old school applied to food stamps and everything.”
Raphaella is thankful that after all this, the State of California gave her the ability to reunify with her daughter. This pushed her to seek help.
“I kind of surrendered, I turned my life over when I lost my son, I started asking for help and stopped feeling like I had to hide,” says Raphaella. “I was connected to so many organizations that helped me, I can’t even explain it other than it being God.”
It was through these organizations that she was introduced to Street Soccer and continued to improve her life. She was really excited to see what it was about and stuck to it because it was really welcoming.
“It was amazing to get connected to the community and meet people that had no ties to me and didn’t know so much about my mess, and we were just there to have fun,” says Raphaella. “I was invited to go to the Homeless World Cup in Wales and it was so good to go out and be a part of something with people who have all experienced something similar to me and still be able to show so much freaking love.”
Raphaella felt like she had support from all her Street Soccer teammates, the daily check-ins at practice allowed her to be fully present in the moment and helped her stop running on autopilot and in survival mode.
“While I was going through my recovery process Street Soccer gave me continuous support and showed me examples of what a community looks like, they asked what my goals were, what I wanted to do,” says Raphaella. “It seemed everywhere I turned somebody wanted information about me but it didn’t feel like it was a threat anymore, I felt connected to people who were going to help me flourish.”
As a goalie for Street Soccer USA at the Homeless World Cup Raphaella learned many things, one of them being that for someone who’s never been a goalie in her life, had amazing goalie skills. She also learned to trust others and believe in herself.
“Street Soccer showed me what it means to be a great fierce, independent individual,” says Raphaella. “Them giving me the opportunity to be at the HWC allowed me to trust again. There was an instance where during one of the celebrations at the tournament a man from a different team came up to me and put a lay around my neck, that kind gesture allowed kind gesture made me think ‘not every male is here on this planet to hurt me.’”
The tournament also brought Raphaella’s competitive spirit back, it encouraged her to fight for what she wanted in soccer and in life.
“I believed in myself again, the last time I had felt like that was when I was 16,” says Raphaella.
Today Raphaella works for some of the organizations that helped her through her recovery. She works to help those people who experience similar difficulties in life as she did. She is helping survivors by showing up for them and continuing to also show up for herself.