A Millien Dreams

In the coming weeks, Sligo Rovers take on Spartak Trnava in second qualifying round of the Europa League and it will mark another new chapter in the footballing career of Pascal Millien. While the winger is impressing in the league with his pacey running on the wings at the Showgrounds and beyond, he still remains focused on his own charity. Extratime.ie caught up with Pascal to talk about the Millien Dreams Foundation. 

We started off by asking Pascal about what inspired him to setup the charity and how it came to be set up.

"Me, from where I'm from, in Haiti when I was growing up playing football in the street, there wasn't really people who really cared about me. What I mean by that like, is that there wasn't really people there to help me.

"From when I moved to America, it changed everything for me when I was the age of 16. Where I moved from, it's urban in the city, where people really cared for people. They really showed me that the cared for me, that they loved me and that they wanted to see the best for me. That is helping me to stay positive in my life.

"I want to bring that back (to Haiti). That inspired me, and those people inspired me to do good for others. Obviously before the earthquake kids were struggling and after there was no hope. I decided to bring some help down there to the kids, to show them that there is someone who cares for them."

The conversation then turned to the current goings-on at the foundation in Leogane in Haiti and to whether or not it's tough being away from the children to which he obviously feels a huge affinity towards.

"We start at the age of 6 to 17, most of them are in activities. The under 15s and the under 13s play games pretty much every weekend. They play a league, but right now there's tournaments for them to play in. At school is really where they start the league.

I'm not gonna say that it's hard, but of course I want to be there.  I have a great cousin who's in charge of everything down there, Alex Millien. He's being doing a fantastic job, keeping everything the way we like it, the way we want the kids to be. We wanna make sure that the kids are taken care of, they have games, food and everything that they need. He's helping me through that, and I'm just pleased because of the type of job he's doing."

I then asked Pascal about when he was hoping to eventually get back out to the charity in Leogane, and what are the goals he has set for the foundation.

"I'm hoping to get out soon after the season. In December, we hope to have camps from them. Before when school starts up again, we hope to raise enough money for them to go to school. In December, we hope to have like a football tournament, like we have done for the past two years. This is the first year we're gonna try and do something different. We'll bring kids from other states in the country, have some music and food to make sure that the kids enjoy themselves and have a good Christmas.

The main thing is to get a school for the kids, so we have our own school. The money is for that, we have a lot of clothes, stuff that people donate like brand new clothes for the kids, soccer equipment from the kids in Florida. We wanna bring that with them, so if we can raise money we're hoping that in the next year or two, we can start building our own school and have our own facilities for the kids so they can train and go to school."

The Millien Dreams Foundation will be having a bucket collection ahead of the home leg of Sligo Rovers' Europa League Qualifying Round against Spartak Trnava on July 26th.