{"id":167682,"date":"2026-04-16T16:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T16:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/167682\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T16:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T16:37:07","slug":"south-philly-dragon-boat-team-dreams-of-reaching-world-championship-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/167682\/","title":{"rendered":"South Philly dragon boat team dreams of reaching world championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania &#8212; Students like Yazmine Acosta and Tha Oo had never heard of the sport, &#8216;dragon boat,&#8217; just a few years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Now, their team has a chance to compete at the world championships.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Discovery Pathways Dragon Boat Team gives students a chance to dream even beyond the lakes and rivers of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">It all stems from the nonprofit, Discovery Pathways, founded by former school teacher Adam Forbes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Forbes, who competed in dragon boat himself, always wanted to create a team for students in the city. He knew that sports like dragon boat can be expensive or downright inaccessible for inner city students.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A few years ago, his program was gifted with a boat by the Khmer Naga Dragon Boat Team during a Southeast Asian Water Festival at FDR Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">This allowed the Discovery Pathways team to kick off and it has been making waves ever since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In 2025, they reported that 85% of participants were refugees or immigrants and 100% of participants were low-income youth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">After earning medals in several races, the team clinched a berth for the 2026 world championships.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Now, they are fundraising to make the trip to Taiwan this summer. A GoFundMe has already netted $5,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">To learn more about Discovery Pathways dragon boat team or to support their mission, visit their <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/discoverypathways\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Instagram page<\/a> and <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/discoverypathways.org\/dragon-boat-team\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania &#8212; Students like Yazmine Acosta and Tha Oo had never heard of the sport, &#8216;dragon boat,&#8217;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[71941,71940,69,71,70,46315,3220,726,3315,11621,2867,39307],"class_list":{"0":"post-167682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-discovery-pathways","9":"tag-dragon-boat","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","12":"tag-philadelphia-news","13":"tag-rowing","14":"tag-south-philly","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-students","17":"tag-team","18":"tag-water","19":"tag-world-championship"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}