A look at Khayelitsha

The Wednesday of my first week in Cape Town (10/19) I was able to go visit one of Grassroot Soccer's main sites in Cape Town and where the Football for Hope Centre (FFH) is located. Khayelitsha is Cape Town's largest township and one of the fastest growing townships in South Africa. It is literally about 20 minutes from where I live on the N2. One minute you are in the city and the next minute you are on a highway that is surrounded by a township made up of a mixture of concrete low building and shanty houses that stretch as far as you can see with little to no street signs. The FFH centre was the first centre to be built by Fifa as part of its world cup 20 centres for 2010. Fifa put up the money to build the center, but GRS manages and runs the centre.

Mosaic that the kids from the township helped make during construction

View from upstairs office

View from upstairs office

The turf field

My favorite shot

At the FFH in Khayelitsha, GRS was running its Skillz Street curriculum. This curriculum is targeted at young girls in the surrounding community aged 12-17 that uses soccer to instill knowledge about HIV risks/preventions, sexual and gender violence, and a number of other life skills lessons. More than anything it brings together about 100 girls from different schools every Wednesday to the centre for a good 3 months where local coaches from the township build relationships and are able to make a direct impact in their lives. At the FFH centre there are a number of other community programs run such as photography, pre-school program (that I hope to help out with), community soccer league, etc.

Skillz Street Program

It was great to see the community centre first hand and how lively it was from the youngest to the oldest participants. I loved being immersed in the culture and getting to see how my work would help to impact the lives of the people I was getting to see first hand. This little girl in the picture below kept wanting me to take her picture. She is one of the local little girls who hangs around the centre everyday. The children love to take pictures and have their pictures taken. At one point she wanted the camera so bad she grabbed it out of my hands (good thing I was paying attention).

These kids kept getting kicked out during the practice, but kept jumping the wall to get back in...I was supposed to keep them out, but let's just say I was a sucker :).

Me and Sinhle (local 9 year old that every person at the centre has befriended and literally hangs out everyday...he loves to play music on the computers, Skye people and watch YouTube videos of his favorite Barcelona player...)

I will be out at Khayelitsha many more times in the next year, but wanted everyone to see what it is about. Plenty more pictures to come! Please do not hesitate to email me if you want more detailed information on what all we do out at the centre. It really is all about the kids at the end of the day!