Hope comes to Alex youth

Hope has been brought to Alex with the launch of the Football for Hope Centre.

The centre is aimed at combining education and health services with football, and will officially start operation in January 2014.

Centre manager Sikhumbuzo Mnculwane said the centre’s focus is not only on soccer though.

“It’s not a soccer facility, it’s a youth facility that’s here for running education and health services. It’s a community centre that’s here to address social issues on education and health for young people in the community,” he explained.

The centre was the 16th of 20 centres to be built in the continent as part of the “20 Centres for 2010”, the official campaign of the 2010 Fifa World Cup which was aimed at creating 20 centres for education, public health and football across Africa.

Mnculwane said that through the centre, young people would be exposed to a number of programmes run by Grassroots Soccer, a global non-governmental organisation.

“We want to provide the opportunity for young people to be part of programmes in a structured way,” he said.

There will be HIV/AIDS prevention programmes where the youth will be given an opportunity to get tested.

“We also have a girls programme called Skills Street which is organised, managed and delivered by girls for girls. The focus of the programme is to put an older girl in the life of a teenage girl who they can… talk to about sensitive issues,” Mnculwane said, adding that topics such as teenage pregnancy, peer pressure and self-image would also be tackled.

He said the centre is also looking at exploring opportunities for children between the ages of three to six and that they would also like to get elderly people to be part of the centre. “The centre will be empty during school hours and we’d love to get gogos to come here and play soccer during that time.”

People outside of Alex are also welcome and it will be open from 8:30am to 5:30pm.