Around all the official activities, the celebrities and speeches, the inauguration of the Football for Hope Centre in Khayelitsha also brought together more than 50 young people for a football tournament and a week of intercultural exchange. On Friday, the delegations met for a session to share their stories and get to know each other. The event brought a room full of young people from Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Brazil together in their quest to express and connect through their own personal pasts.
The session opened with a performance by poet Mandisi Jongo and several activities to break the ice among the participants of the forum that just a few hours before had met for the first time. Soon thereafter, the young people in attendance were finding power and a common understanding through sharing their own histories and thoughts about the future.
Their stories
A young participant from streetfootballworld network member WhizzKids United spoke to the room about his struggle with alcohol after the death of his father and the key role WhizzKids United played in bringing him back to his own potential. “Since then, I’m a free boy, and I’m living to go to my future,” he explained.
His teammate talked about his experience with drug addiction. He realised one day that he was no longer living a life he considered to be his own, and eventually returned to school. “If you don’t get an education in this world, you are nothing,” he reminded his peers.
Lerato also took the microphone to document her discovery that she was HIV-positive, and her decision to face her past and change her future by joining streetfootballworld network member Kick4Life. Now a well-known figure, she encouraged her peers to get tested, noting that “you have to know yourself before it’s too late.”
streetfootballworld network member Play Soccer helped one of their most committed participants deal with the death of his father, showing to him that “football can change you. It can change the world.” He now helps out in his community and is careful to act as a role model for others.
Standing up to speak, a member of the Brazilian delegation (a joint delegation formed by streetfootballworld network members EPROCAD and Formação) fought back tears to tell the room that his own story began the week he arrived at Khayelitsha. Listening to their struggles, he said, had made him realise that the challenges he faced weren’t so big after all.
Strength in sharing
Several young people noted that telling their stories helped them to understand and tackle their problems and allowed them to have “less pain and anger in [their] hearts.” It also created a special bond between the storyteller and the listener; indeed, many of the attendees realised that they had similar stories and could learn from each other.
“We all have stories to tell,” one of them told his audience. “How we tell them is important.”
The first Football for Hope Centre in Khayelitsha
The forum was organised as part of a week-long celebration of the power of football held in Cape Town, South Africa, which began with cultural activities and will end with a football tournament after the inauguration of the first Football for Hope Centre in Khayelitsha, Cape Town on December 5-6.
