Throughout June and July a team of 20 went out, from the faith based charity Youth With A Mission (YWAM), to a place called Grabouw, just outside of Cape Town.
The purpose of the visit was to help a charity called Themabalitsha carry out their World Cup programme. Grabouw has about 52,000 people and is mostly an apple picking region. The town is crippled by the high rates of HIV/AIDS and also TB.
Themabalitsha use sport to help in these poor communities and currently run six football projects. The team from YWAM went to put into practice what they recently learned through the Hertfordshire FA on their Level 1 coaching course.
It was amazing to see the impact football has on the lives of these children. Over the weeks the team ran soccer, cricket, netball and dodgeball sessions to about 1500 children on a regular basis, 6 days a week. During the world cup they would coach up until lunch, which was then provided for the children, and then we would all sit down and watch some of the action on a big screen, with hundreds of vuvuzella's screaming out.
Saturdays were competition day and five a side tournaments were run. On one of the Saturdays a touring U11 and U15 team came from Northern Ireland. It was very funny when these Western kids who were all kitted out were asked to remove their branded expensive football boots in order to even things up with the locals and play in bare foot!
So over the course of 8 weeks one could really see the impact football can have on a local community, it is hard to get a flavour of that through fleeting visits to projects.
The biggest eye opener was the thought that by coaching these kids and providing a fun safe environment like this protected hundreds of children just kicking around the streets and slums possibly being abused.
It was a real privilege to be there and a huge thanks to the Hertfordshire FA and Kit Aid for all the support they have given us.
Article courtesy of
Paul Baker - Youth With A Mission
For more information on the project please contact Paul via email - click here