To most North American sports fans, "Puig" is a baseball name. Since escaping poverty in his native Cuba, slugger Yasiel Puig has shaken up Major League Baseball with his unpredictable antics and towering home runs. To children in the Mathare slums of Nairobi, Kenya, the name Puig conjures up a quite different bat-wielding hero. Alvaro De Abreu Puig is the founder of the Talent4Development organization, which "wants to give children the ability to imagine a different future and the tools of education to live the dream." Thus, Puig and Talent4Development have launched a program called Mathare Tables for Hope. Similar to the Slum Ping Pong initiative in Kampala, Uganda, the program uses table tennis as a tool to expand educational opportunities for children in need. Puig, who studied law, business and sport management in his native Spain, is also an athlete and a ITTF Level 1 certified coach. After visiting Kenya, he decided to move there and use his wide-ranging skillset to promote positive change. "The main problem we are trying to solve is to break the cycle of poverty," says Puig. "I witnessed how the children in the slums had no activities, even didn't go to school. I know teaching sport can offer them new opportunities and a way to imagine a better life." After only one year, at least 60 children from the Mathare slums have enrolled in school because of the program. While Alvaro De Abreu Puig may not be the Major League Puig, this Puig is certainly major league.

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