The Phokwane Youth Sports League, Part I

One of the projects we feel has been most meaningful and successful to us thus far has been playing soccer and netball with the children in our village every Saturday.

Jennie came up with the idea when her Sepedi tutor, Mahlatse, commented on the lack of activities for youth to do - on the weekends, on school breaks, in general. So after the lesson, we played soccer and ultimate frisbee with about 15 kids and Mahlatse.

This continued for about three weeks when we decided the soccer field didn't have much water. So I asked my principal if we could move the Saturday games to the school, which has water, a netball court and a full size soccer ground.

Three weeks more down the line, and over 50 kids were showing up. If you've never tried to play one soccer game with 50 kids, don't. It doesn't work. Everyone kind of swarms the ball. So now we've started playing netball in addition.