Stunning, the view from my window, as the rising sun's rays bounce off the majestic Indian ocean, I realize how this city is growing on me the more I discover, the more people I meet and the more time I spend here. There is an undoubted contrast between the tourist targeted areas and the townships due to the differences in investment and the wealth gap that exists between rich and poor. There are thousands of people in the townships that Grassroot Soccer seeks to reach,most of them being children. The World Cup would have surely provided people something to be cheerful about, but ultimately I'm sure they would really like to see their plight improve collectively. My hope is that it does. It is a hope I hold for the whole continent of Africa as we move forward. The townships of PE are by no means a depressing, sullen sight though. People are up and about, always smiling, and doing what they can to take care of their own and being resourceful. There are many informal market places, cell phones on every ear it seems and kids everywhere! the desire and push for advancement is there, one hopes for the very best for all these people. I can at least say that our organization is looking to play a part in that better future!
Work has started in earnest and yesterday I got to meet more GRS coaches. There are over 30 coaches, working in the townships of Motherwell, New Brighton and Zwide where our office is based. 8 of them were around the office ready to start their skillz curricula with new groups of youths. I will outline the basic 9 lessons of Skillz, soon in order to give you an idea of one of the core programs of the organization.
We found out that on September 24th there will be a VCT soccer tournament hosted by our very office. A VCT is a Voluntary Counseling and Testing event which in our case will use the framework of a soccer tournament to get community members tested for the HIV virus, with free testing should they find that they have tested positive.I am learning more and more about it, and hopefully after reading up on it today I can give more insight. We have a planning meeting later this week and with 5 weeks remaining we will need to be efficient in our planning and implementation of the event, because the goal is to reach out to a large section of the community. September 24th is a public holiday in South Africa, Heritage Day. It is an ideal time to host a tournament such as this and GRS looks to make the most of holidays to assist the community.
Off to another day of work, in the Windy City (heard its also called the friendly city, I'd concur..)!
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