an amazing sports saturday

last saturday we held another of our amazing sports saturday's where we hosted over 160 children who joined us at the elgin country club on what was a very sunny and happy day, we therefore firstly need to thank God for the provision of the good weather, the finances and abilities that each of our team has which enables us to run an event as big as this.

the children who came are part of our sports outreach clubs which run every term time weekday afternoon, weather permitting, in seven different areas around grabouw and it was a real pleasure to see the joy and excitement on their little faces as we met them at each bus pick up points with an expectation of a morning playing sports.

the day is a celebration of the children's commitment to our weekly clubs and is a place where they can show us the skills that they have learnt on the sports pitch as we organise an under 11 and over 11 soccer (association football for all those living in europe!) and netball competitions throughout the morning. however during this time together we are able to see the life skills, and even the health awareness, which we teach at each club, come to the fore, where both teamwork, sharing, communicating, courage and even patience with others is evident as we split the boys and girls into mixed clubs enabling them to work with others as they seek to win the prize!

the event isn't without its complications, just to get 160 children to the event involves early morning bus journey's as we pick every child up from around the various formal and informal settlements of grabouw, but it doesn't start there as there are so many jobs that need to be completed to ensure that this runs as smoothly as possible, from delivering and installing the 12 soccer and netball goals and setting up the pitches on the friday afternoon, to sorting 160 shirts and shorts to ensure that every player feels like a premiership star, to cooking the hotdogs and delivering them on time, it has taken a while but the preparation that is undertaken by the 'sports outreach team' ensures that the day runs like a well oiled machine and enormous thanks is sent to them from me (tim!).


during the morning we played over 20 ten minute soccer games and held a netball tournament which was attended by over 40 girls, the biggest yet!, each child was part of a team which was managed by either one of our sports mentors (peer educators) or a willing volunteer, no names but you know who you are, these managers make the children feel really important, with fair play and encouraging teamwork being the main elements to a successful manager at these events.

we could continue to write about the amazing time we had but we know that sometimes pictures speak louder than words therefore we have placed as many photos as possible which we do hope capture the spirit of the event and shows the joy that a morning of sport can bring to some of the poorest children in our communities.

it all comes together with sport

now how did this go together again?!

on saturday morning we held our latest sports saturday at the elgin country club, the event was made possible by our wonderful volunteers, the HAN students and the german architect students who took some time off of their busy building schedule.

we host these sports saturdays for the 7 different groups of children that we work with throughout our daily sports outreach projects in the different communities and farms in grabouw and elgin valley. it was with deep regret that we had to restrict each of the teams to 8 players, meaning that some of the children were unable to attend but due to limited resources, in transportation and kit, we were still able to provide over 150 children with a fantastic morning of sport.

the 'set up team' arrived at the country club under grey sky's with drizzle in the air at 8am and by 9am the two 65 seater coaches provided by our local transport company, gaffley's, were making the trip around the townships to pick up the teams arriving with 129 joyful and expectant children at about 10am!....(it's amazing that we had just one seat left on the buses, only God could provide just what we needed)......the children from our farm outreach were already there waiting with the managers who greeted us from the buses.

finalists of the over 13's football

after introducing the children to their managers we were then set the task of distributing the kits for each of the teams, all the children were so well behaved, they listened to their managers really well and by 10.30 we had opened in prayer and the games began.

as the morning went on the weather improved and we were more worried about sun stroke than waterproofs........the girls played a netball tournament with 5 teams, some had more than the 8 players so they shared the games with substitutions and whilst they were waiting for their games they could also play a game of volleyball......the boys were split into under and over 13 age groups, a total of 10 teams, once again some with more than the 8 players we had wanted, played until a winner was found.

the children played so well, it was great to see some of the skills that we have been working on, both in the netball and soccer games and also in the way that they treated and respected each other.....the lifeskills programme is such a success and an article written by one of the HAN students appeared in the local grabouwer newspaper captures that...maybe click on the image to have a read about his experience?

report about village of hope sports
outreach in the local grabouwer

for record 'site view' beat 'remhoogte' in the final of the under 13's football, a mixed group of girls from 'remhoogte and rooidakke' won the netball and once again the boys from 'waterwerks' informal settlement beat iraq on penalties in the over 13 football tournament.

the day was a huge success and culminated in the guys from the round table providing the children, and helpers, with hot dog rolls and cool drinks.....it was a truly multicultural and international event with our referees from canada and south africa (our local sports mentors), managers from south africa, germany, holland and england...and we even welcomed some norwegians who were showing their support on their visit to grabouw.

the children made their way home at around 2pm and after a long clear up operation the dutch and german students (with a little help from the canadians) had a game of football together, our sports mentors also made up the teams with holland putting last years defeat behind them to over come the german international team 4-1 with 3 goals from michael from our waterwerks sports mentor programme!

it just shows that if we put our differences a side we can all come together and have a fantastic day which benefits everyone on different levels...thanks guys for your help and support and to the children you truly are amazing and demonstrate what a real rainbow nation could look like!

another successful sports saturday

last saturday we held our last sports saturday of the 2010 year, an eventful year for sport in south africa and not one that we have let pass by either.

this final sports saturday took place at our new venue the groenberg (green mountain) high school in grabouw, where we hosted around 100 children for a morning of soccer and netball competition.

the teams were made up of the two new schools project we have started, KMP (katharine murray primary) and pineview primary, who previously made up our hillside and rooidakke teams, along with our established community teams from iraq and waterwerks as well the farm team from remhoogte. the boys were split into under 13 and under 15 age groups with lisa organising the girls as she felt fit!....

all the boys had to play in bare feet as not everyone had sports shoes but we were able to provide football shirts to all teams, including bristol city, reading and coventry city, shame there were no QPR tops but they remain top of the football league championship in england so we're not really moaning.

we played on 4 pitches with referees from the HAN university helping out to keep control and after some stiff competition, the u13's was won by a team from waterwerks, the u15's by the boys from iraq and the netball by remhoogte, the school teams performed well and really enjoyed playing in their first real tournament.

after the games we were treated to a wonderful braai (BBQ) which was provided and cooked by the guys from the roundtable, who also sponsored our new 'village of hope sports outreach' tee shirts.

if you would like to sponsor a sports saturday which costs around £100 to run with drinks, food and prizes then please contact us!

soccer saturday goes large!

last saturday we, (tim, daz, harry and trondor), ran a 'soccer saturday' for around 60 adult farm workers from one of the local apple farms. we had hoped that we could have introduced some of the lifeskills that we use when we work with the boys in our town, however due to a late (african time) start and a huge language barrier, as some of the guys were from zimbabwe, we decided to get straight into the main event.....football!

we split the men into 8 teams and ran two leagues, each team playing each other and then a final round of games between the two leagues, it was all great fun, we refereed the games and i am sure the guys had a great time.

it's our aim to start to work with the farm workers children on a friday afternoon, and to find a 'responsible' worker to take over the model that we set last weekend, this will be a long process but one to which we are called.

the main reason for running the event was to keep the farm workers from spending the whole afternoon drinking, which i think we achieved, although we all needed a stiff drink ourselves when we got home!!

latest sports saturday

last saturday morning we held our latest sports saturday, this is an event organised by daz under the sports outreach and run by village of hope for the children that attend our soccer and netball outreach in the town, we hold it at the elgin country club which is a world away from the communities where these children live.

once again we had over 100 children attend, split into 8 soccer teams, 4 under 15 and 4 under 13, and 4 netball sides......iraq boys won both the u13's and u15's soccer and a team of girls from elgin timbers won the netball....we want to thank our norwiegen volunteer (trondor and gretta) for providing the funds for us to run this event, which included a cool drink and a hot dog to end with...as well as prizes for the winning teams and best player awards.

we thought that you might like to see a couple of photos, one shows arron with his rooidakke team, another some girls playing netball and the last one some of our under 13's boys.

trondors take on the soccer saturday

we have a wonderful norwegian couple working with us at the moment and as i have highlighted before trondor, the gentleman, has his own blog, in norwegian, but you can get google to translate for us!, anyway he has posted a blog about the soccer saturday, pls visit his blog here to read the post and gain his insight into the work we are doing in the community.

birthdays and soccer saturday!

i can't believe its nearly been a week since i last posted, things just seem to be rushing away with us at the village of hope at the minute.....and we didn't really have any time off over the weekend as we ran our latest soccer saturday in the morning and held a birthday party for two of our children, along with their families at the village of hope in the afternoon.

well lets start with the soccer saturday, once again we bought together the children that we work with in the 4 different areas of grabouw, each area providing 2 soccer teams (under 12 and under 15) of 7 boys and one team of girls for netball...all in all we had over 120 children playing sport between 9am and 1pm which was fantastic.

i picked my boys up from the squatter camp called iraq, at 8.30 in the morning and took this photo of the boys next to our training post and in front of the squatter camp before we left, as you will see in the following photo the pitches we played on and the setting of those pitches were a little different to the area where these boys live.......such is the contrast between the have and have nots in this country.

trondor and the two dutch students who are working with us, lars and denis, refereed the soccer matches, which were organised by daz, lisa sorted the netball which seemed to be played in a wonderful spirit, such a lot of noise coming from the girls supporting from the sidelines.

for the record, arron's rooidakke team once again won the under 12 age group, but he couldn't repeat his whitewash as last time with my team from iraq winning the under 15 age group on a penalty shoot out after the teams finished level in the group stage.....the iraq boys where singing all the way home in the back of my pick up (bakkie) and were warmly welcomed by the members of the squatter area with shouts of joy..elgin timbers won the netball again with much joy and excitement.

overall everyone had a wonderful time, each child received a fresh drink and a packet of crisps, which made their day, and the kids were so excited to travel to the country club in a bus as well...see photo below of the wonderful surroundings we played in.

ok then on saturday afternoon, after a short nap, we welcomed the family of one of our children who was celebrating his second birthday, the other boy wasn't so blessed as we have no contact with his family, however he enjoyed opening his presents, and feeding on the wonderful feast that maz, lisa and jess had arranged to celebrate his third birthday.

we played parcel the parcel with the children, which was more of a hit with the adults who were visiting, by their reaction i think that might have been the first time that they had ever played the game, which allowed everyone to unwrap a piece of the parcel and win a prize, it was like everyone was celebrating their birthdays!....

i will try to upload some further photos of the soccer day and the party onto my flickr account later, that's if i have enough upload gigs, please visit later for more photos.

first 'soccer saturday'

on saturday we enjoyed our first ‘soccer saturday’ outreach in grabouw, the aim of the morning was to bring together the various teams that we run during the week so that they could put into action the skills, both soccer (and netball) and the lifeskills we have been teaching them over the last few weeks..

the event started at 9am with prayer (following a manic time for the organising team, of daz, lisa, maz, arron, reagan, tim and sandra before hand to ensure all the children arrived on time) and then the ‘tournament’ started, this was which was a round robin affair with all teams (hillside, pineview, iraq, roooidakke, elgin timbers) playing each other to decide the overall winner.

4 teams contested the under 15 soccer league, all 5 entered the under 13 soccer league and lisa ran 3 teams for the netball. Each of the soccer teams were made up of 5 boys, with up to 4 substitues and the netball was obviously seven with again a few subs...it was great to see over 100 children come together from townships and squatter camps to enjoy themselves on a saturday morning and this is defiantly something we will be repeating throught the year, leading up to the 2010 world cup next year.

the everynation church from baxter congregation in cape town came to help ref the games and oversee the teams, they also provided the refreshments for the children after the prize giving. we were also joined by ross and the team from aylesbury who took loads of photos and also had a great time interacting with the children that we work with.

for the record arron’s roooidakke soccer teams were the winners of both age groups, with a 3 way penalty shootout decided the under 13 league and the under 15’s won with a last minute penalty both against tim’s Iraq sides.....not a lot was said by tim following those defeats! (he writes!)....the netball was won by the hillside girls who receive their training from reagan and tim on a monday afternoon....maybe that says something about tim and reagan's soccer v netball skills!

please visit tim’s flickr site for some photos.