This fusion has allowed Amandla EduFootball to develop a healthy attitude towards education in the children taking part in its programmes, using their love of sport as incentive. (Image: Amandla EduFootball, via Facebook)
As the name suggests, Amandla EduFootball capitalises on the widespread love of the beautiful game to get children to engage with education by fusing the two, creating a single vehicle to uplift and empower the country’s youth.
This fusion has allowed Amandla EduFootball to develop a healthy attitude towards education in the children taking part in its programmes, using their love of sport as incentive.
Florian Zech and Leonora Reid, who were working at a children’s home in Cape Town before founding Amandla, came to realise the need to give children in residential care the opportunity to take part in sports and life skills building activities during their down time.
The idea of creating an “education through sport” programme seemed to be an ideal way of engaging and stimulating pupils after school while also drawing their attention away from negative influences such as substance abuse and violence.
Today more than 3 000 children take part in the organisation’s activities every week – and this number is growing steadily. This continued growth shows the relevance and impact of sports in education and the development of young minds.
Amandla’s focus on fair play aims to encourage children to develop their team work skills, their attitude towards other children as well as their ability to deal with conflict. (Image:Amandla EduFootbal, via Facebook)
TUTORING PROGRAMME AND FAIRPLAY
By combining daily homework sessions with football, Amandla EduFootball’s tutoring programme helps learners to improve their academic performance. It also gives them ongoing support.
These sessions help to get the children past areas where they may be struggling at school and help them to improve their performances all round, giving them a strong foundation to build on later on in their school careers.
EduFootball also runs football leagues among the children taking part in its programmes. The points tallies in the league combine the scores of each of the matches with fair play points given to team members.
These fair play points serve as indicators to track the improvement in behaviour among team members and the opposition and encourage them to develop their team work skills, their attitude towards other children as well as their ability to deal with conflict.
GET INVOLVED IN EDUFOOTBALL
“Our experience and research tells us that we cannot achieve a sustainable impact in marginalised communities without in-depth collaboration,” Zech explains, touching on the importance of getting support from the public and corporations for non-profit organisations such as Amandla EduFootball to succeed.
“The ability to bring together partners from all sectors allows us to create lasting change among our youth and communities.”
If you want to help improve the lives of the many children benefiting from the efforts of Amandla EduFootball, visit its website for details about how to get involved.
The organisation welcomes volunteers who want to work directly with the children during the day to day activities at their facilities. If you would prefer to donate to the cause, visit the donate page for information on how to do so.
For more information, contact Amandla EduFootball on 021 447 8261 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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