With less than 100 days to go until the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the Green Point (GP) and Oranje-Kloof (OK) City Improvement Districts (CIDs) launched the OUR 2010 campaign to activate businesses to invest in the sustainable development of our communities through football.
The initiative is a collaboration with African Brothers Football Academy (ABFA) and former Bafana Bafana striker George Dearnaley and kicked
off with a R6,000 donation from the CIDs. This donation will be used towards membership fees for children to attend ABFA.
Harley-Davidson Cape Town has made a generous donation of R10 000. Part of this donation will be used to ensure that these children can continue to play football at ABFA on an ongoing basis, and the rest will be used for soccer balls.
Says ABFA founder Craig Hepburn, "In support of OUR 2010, ABFA will cover the ongoing membership fees of every second child who joins the academy leading up to the World Cup."
The children attending ABFA are from the OK and GP CID areas as well as from other areas around Cape Town. Says GP CID CEO, Marc Truss: "The CIDs decided not to limit the campaign to children within the boundaries of the GP and OK CID areas, but rather to open it up and help as many children as possible to play football in a safe environment, where they can develop their skills under the guidance of experienced coaches and interact with children from different cultures."
Two of the children directly benefiting from OUR 2010 sponsorship are Thobani Morris, a 15 year old from Oranje-Kloof and Giggs Dungi, a 13 year old from Woodstock.
Originally from the Eastern Cape, Morris now lives in Oranje-Kloof with his aunt and brother, and takes the train to school in Gugulethu each day. He attends ABFA as many days a week as he can after school, and has been going to the Academy for over 8 months now. Says Morris, "I like coming to African Brothers, because of the soccer and because all of my friends are here." He also commented on the fact that he feels very safe within the environment at ABFA and that his dream is to become the goal keeper of the ABFA team.
Giggs Dungi is a newcomer to ABFA. He only started a week ago, but so far really enjoys spending time at the Academy and will definitely make it a daily activity. His father taught him soccer when he was 8 years old and since then he has been playing soccer at his school, Prestwich. He says he prefers coming to African Brothers Football Academy, because he can play soccer for longer hours and is around his friends. Giggs also feel 100% safe at the Academy. His dream is to become a professional soccer player like his hero Marco Borriello from AC Milan.
OUR 2010 is running for another 78 days. Visit the website, www.cid2010.com to find out more or contribute towards the campaign.
