our 8th sports club starts.....in the rain!

aphiwe leading the first soccer based lifeskills club
in marikana informal settlement

there is such need in our community and it would be easy to have a scatter gun approach to all the issues that we see and are confronted with on a daily basis, however we are keen to ensure the sustainability of any project that we start and therefore planning and preparation has been the key to our success. 

aphiwe (front) with the boys at our new sports outreach

this approach can be seen as we have developed our sports outreach over the last few years, and within this blog post we are pleased to announce that not only have we taken on two new sports mentors (local young adults from the communities we work in who provide that peer to peer education) but have increasing our clubs from the first one we set up in october 2008 which met the needs of about 20 boys aged about 13 to now our eighth club which sees us work over 400 children each week from the youngest under three's all the way through to boys and girls aged 15 and 16 years.

the new club was the dream of a new mentor (aphiwe) which has been set up in the marikana informal settlement, which sits between two of our existing clubs in north pineview and iraq. aphiwe is being supported by three of our long term mentors as he develops his skills and encourages the children who live around his home to come join the club which is taking place each and every wednesday afternoon.

unfortunately the weather didn't play ball for the first week session, however the overcast and rainy conditions didn't stop around 15 boys attending the new club and we are excited to see if we could introduce a netball club to engage with the local girls at the same location.

the success of our clubs is proof that we provide the knowledge and skills to enable the mentors to run their own clubs, in fact this is the second club where the mentors have taken on the whole running of the club without the need for us to attend at all, this is fantastic news and shows that the input that we have had with these mentors (who have all attended our various clubs as children themselves) is working and sustainable!