The Teams

Team Mustafa

Susan Felcher
Los Angeles, USA

Susan, a Washington DC local, grew up never knowing what she wanted to be. She decided instead to follow each path she encountered to see where it would lead her.

One of those paths lead to meeting John Lovejoy and Tony Perez ten years ago, outside the US capital while holding a summer lifeguarding job. Her sense of adventure got the better of her, and after the summer ended she got in her car and out of the city, driving across the United States to start a new life in California. The almost foreign US south sparked a nerve and got her thinking what might be beyond the bordering oceans. Not quite ready to settle for the tranquility for the California sun, she drove back to the East Coast, this time landing in Philadelphia. Still unsure of which coast she prefers, she simply oscillates between them and is currently in LA.

"I think at this point I'm still pretty unsure and trying to sort out this whole life thing, I'm happy to sit back enjoy where it's going at the moment and content to let the stars figure it out for me," she says. This attitude lead her to Germany for the 2006 World Cup and an eagerness since then for 2010. "I wanted to go back to the World Cup, but hadn't quite hatched a plan to do so." When a fateful connection put her back in touch with John Lovejoy and a subsequent email invited her on the Trek, she knew it was meant to be.

Dropping everything last minute in favor of adventure is just Susan's nature. "I'm just willing to get in the car and go. Adventure is about the journey and this is the perfect way to see the world, help the kids and at the same time live life to the fullest.  It seems cliche to say I am spontaneous, but I never seem to know what I want to do until it happens.  Then I just go with the flow until I get where I am going... I really do hope we make it to Cape Town!"

Jonathan Lea-Howarth
London, England

Being the second Jon on the team and having a mouthful of a last name, everyone has taken to calling him JLH for short.

His travel experience starting on a solo gap year to South East Asia: "The four month experience left me with a new perspective on life and a restlessness that anyone bitten with the travel bug can relate to," he says. He managed to finish university despite urges to continue on traveling, and graduated with a BSc in Physics.

He spent 3 years as a successful but unfulfilled salesman in London, before resolving to find a career that satisfied more than just his bank account. “I just felt I had been offered so many advantages as a white middle class kid growing up in London that were denied to the majority of people I had encountered traveling in the developing world," he says. "As cheesy as it sounds, I wanted to give something back and at the same time find a job that inspired me.”

Returning to the University of Sussex to read a Masters in Contemporary War and Peace Studies, he discovered the growing Sport and Development movement, epitomized by our World Cup Trek Partners, Coaching for Hope, Kick4Life, Grassroot Soccer, and Hope for Children. After researching a dissertation on the application of team sports in the process of peace-building, Jonathan graduated and accepted a three-year contract to be Project Coordinator of Coaching for Hope in Burkina Faso.

It was there that he learned French, fell in love with West Africa and met John Lovejoy. "Being a part of the sport and development movement, I was totally behind [Lovejoy's] effort to raise the much needed funds for my project and others of a similar ilk."

Jonathan has more recently been working in Haiti with Hope for Children to launch a sport and development programme for children affected by the recent devastating earthquake.

He is taking a brief hiatus from his work there to return to Africa with World Cup Trek: "Being the adventurous type, and having spent the last three years dipping my toe in the waters of West Africa, I was desperate to join the trek, so that I could discover more of this huge and diverse continent. I can’t wait to hit the road!”