BUILDING COMMUNITIES THROUGH SPORT

South Africa hosts the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and the legacy from the event will include better airports, roads, transport systems and major stadia. The new Green Point Stadium In Cape Town is nearing completion and will provide a magnificent venue for major events.

A twenty minute drive along the coast from the stadium will bring you to the informal settlement of Imizamo Yethu and here you will find that the provision for sport is very different.

Imizamo Yethu, situated in Hout Bay, Cape Town, is home to some 30,000 people. This township consists mostly of shacks and has a high level of social deprivation with the usual accompanying problems of poverty, hunger, lack of basic amenitites, poor education, street children, exploitation and abuse of young people, drug abuse, crime, and health issues including HIV/Aids.

Sport, in particular soccer, provides one of the few social outlets for young people in this community.  The facilities to play sport are however limited to a single soccer pitch. Such is the demand to play that this facility has been worn down through overuse into a dirt pitch.  It is a dust bowl in the summer and mud bath in the winter.

The pitch is situated on a site that has been acquired for the development of an international school and provision is being made by the the City of Cape Town to develop a new sports field that will accommodate up to four soccer pitches.

The Imizamo Yethu Sports Field Project aims to support this development by raising additional funds in the UK to make it possible for one of the soccer pitches to have a 3G synthetic surface and to fund a youth sport programme involving local schools and sports clubs.

Faced with the need to invest in housing, basic services, education, health and policing, the City of Cape Town has limited finances to develop sports facilities and only plans to develop grass sports fields on the new site which is opposite Imizamo Yethu.  We believe that the demand to play sport from the local schools and communities is so high that overuse of the grass pitches will quickly become a problem.  By raising the funds to install a 3G synthetic grass surface we will help provide this community with a consistent and sustainable surface for competition, practice and sports development activities.  We also hope that by providing an artificial playing surface we will help take the pressure off the remaining grass pitches.

Recognising the power of sport to change lives and build better communities we want to ensure that the new facility is able to offer well organised and managed youth sports programmes involving the schools and community.  Some of the funds raised will be invested into a youth sport programme that will provide a quality sporting experience for young people and use sport to develop their life skills.

International Development through Sport UK (Registered Charity Number 1001564)

International Development through Sport UK (IDS) a registered charity (Number 1001564) has agreed to support the Imizamo Yethu Sports Field Project by receiving the funds raised and by using these to finance the project through a memorandum of understanding entered into with the City of Cape Town.

Our aim is to raise £300,000 in the UK for this project by identifying 1000 individuals to each raise £300 through a variety of small fund raising activities. Hopefully, you can help us make a difference. It would be fantastic if we could achieve our goal by July 2010 so that we can announce implementation of the project during the FIFA World Cup.

The charity IDS is operated by UK Sport and is about 'harnessing the power of sport to change lives' in deprived communities primarily in Africa. It uses sport to empower, mobilise and inspire youth and to reintegrate them into society. IDS is about teaching youth leadership and life skills, breaking down barriers, tackling stigma and bridging cultural and ethnic divides. IDS works with grassroots organisations in country to deliver sports programmes that engage and empower youth in the following areas: - Life skills and youth development; Equity (gender and disability); HIV/AIDS education and awareness; Conflict resolution and Disaster and trauma relief.

We are using this JustGiving page to facilitate donations to the project.  JustGiving is a simple, fast and totally secure way of making a donation. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the International Development through Sport UK charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer.

To Find Out More

To find out more about the Imizamo Yethu Sport Field Project please click this link to view our website.