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FIFA Festival 2010 Kids selected

posted by Oli Walsh on March 5th, 2010

Today marked the day when we would eventually try and select our kids for Festival 2010. Having been postponed by a week due to the Durban weather, there was an air of nervousness at the volunteer house last night as the rain came down!

Thankfully this morning the sun came out, and it had not actually rained in Lamontville! So between 100 and 150 kids, boys and girls, from three schools that had participated in our life skills programme came to Lamontville Sports Ground, all hoping to clinch one of the four spots for Festival 2010!

FIFA’s Football for Hope Festival 2010 is a week long programme of sporting, artistic and musical activities with 52 organisations using sport for social change flying in from around the world. FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter expressed that “the Football for Hope Festival will be a unique opportunity for organisations using football as a tool for social development in every part of the world to interact with each other and to showcase their programmes on football’s biggest stage –the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We look forward to welcoming them to South Africa and experiencing together how football is contributing to a better future.”

We are partnering with Altus Sport who will be providing the older kids in the 15-18 bracket, as a lot of our kids were on the younger side. Unfortunately we have had to exclude many kids form the selection process as they were just too young, with much of our focus on 11-14 year old kids.

The day had been designed by Matthias and Stefan, with the morning focus on football ability, attitude and how they worked within a team. The kids were then whittled down to a group of 30, who took part in some life skills and football sessions, until we had a final 10 who all presented on a topic from our programme! We then ended up with our final four, two boys and two girls who were the chosen ones!

The highlight for all the kids (apart from the chosen four!), was a visit from local PSL side Lamontville Golden Arrows. They very kindly brought all of their playing squad, as well as their coaching staff. They talked to all our kids of their experiences as footballers, their life experiences, stressed the importance of attitude and also gave the kids a chance to ask questions, with one kid asking Philani Shange why he had not finished school! A big thank you to Lamontville Golden Arrows, the chance for the kids to meet their heroes is a real motivator, especially as many of them aspire to be footballers one day!

Please check out our gallery soon for more pictures from the event