A Busy December

Instead of winding down programming at the end of the year, the Khayelitsha Football For Hope Centre decided to ramp it up! In honor of World AIDS Day, we held two large events at the beginning of December. On December 1st, we hosted an Indaba (traditional word for meeting) to fundraise money for the Football For Hope Centre. The event was funded by Real People's Bank, a local bank in the area, and helped to cement our partnership with them. In the morning, we hosted a buggy soccer game for disabled children from a neighboring organization.  In the afternoon, we invited local organizations to come and learn more about Grassroot Soccer programming. Unfortunately, I was too busy running around to take pictures, so I'm working on tracking them down from other people. But the event was a great success and a lot of representatives from local government even showed up.

Only two short days later, we held a HCT (HIV Counseling and Testing) Soccer Tournament at the local Mandela Park stadium. This was a  huge endeavor, and an event we had been planning for months.  The day started with a Fun Walk from the Centre to Mandela Park to help recruit the community to come out for the event and get tested.  There were 32 men's teams competing and 5 women's teams, and there were cash prizes for first and second place. From 9:00 until 19:00, there were testing partners set up around the complex to test players and any one else that was interested in getting tested.  To promote testing among the teams, we gave teams additional points if their players got tested, making it more likely that they'd move on to the semi-finals. Since there were so many teams and games to be played, we ended up having the final game at midnight, and doing the award ceremony at around 2:00 am...at a gas station. It was the only lit up place we could find at that time of night! We ended up testing 463 people, and got to see some great soccer! But, it was definitely my most exhausting day of work yet.

Our coaches put the FUN in fun walk

Reaching Mandela Park!

Playing on the main field

The Red Eagles - the winning women's team!

Mens' award ceremony at the gas station

After these two large events, we didn't have too much time to rest. The following week we had a curriculum training with the coaches, and then we had a holiday camp the week after that. The year ended on a very good note with a coaches' celebration in Grabouw, a mountain town east of the townships. Again, I'll work on tracking down some pictures from other people. Overall, it was a whirlwind of a month, but I learned a lot and had an amazing time.  Happy holidays to all!