SpotSports a Part of Coral Gables/Santa Tecla Sister City Partnership

Pamela Berkowsky has extensive executive federal and state government experience, with an emphasis on national defense, homeland security, healthcare and economic development . As president of Blue Sapphire Strategies (BSS), Pamela Berkowsky provides specialized public affairs consultancy solutions and strategic advisory services to start-ups, defense and tech companies, non-profits and government entities. An avid tennis player and fan, Ms. Berkowsky also serves on the US national board of the Israel Tennis & Education Centers Foundation (ITEC) which supports one of the largest social service organizations in Israel.
Her experience with ITEC and expertise in the international diplomatic arena recently came into play for one of her clients when in the summer of 2018, Coral Gables, Florida Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli signed a Sister City Partnership with his counterpart in the El Salvadoran city of Santa Tecla, the country’s second largest city. She saw an opportunity for her Florida-based client, SpotSports Scholastics, a youth-oriented integrated sports education program already active in both South Florida and Santa Tecla, to become part of the mayors’ high-profile partnership initiative.
SportSports had already been implemented in more than a dozen schools in Santa Tecla and in the city’s park system as a means of keeping the city’s impoverished kids off the streets while traning them to maximize their athletic and academic potential. Ms. Berkowsky alerted the Mayor and his International Affairs Committee Chair, to her client’s significant in-country efforts. Mayor Valdes-Fauli embraced the SpotSports program as part of the Sister City effort, stating “It’s wonderful to have (such) collaboration with our Sister City, especially with a program that improves the lives of children… Programs for kids and for sports make us better cities… All of our kids will be better after this wonderful SpotSports effort.”
Graduate students at a prominent El Salvador University undertook a research project to develop a Spanish workbook for pre-K and elementary students as part of the SpotSports integrated sports and education curriculum. It will be translated into French and English, furthering the possibilities for future tennis and citizen diplomacy.
