ANGOLA - May 2007
"Replacing bombs with balls" - to read a report from the team that were out in Angola, click here
Why Angola? Angola has suffered from almost 30 years of civil war. But now there is peace and they have the chance to re-build.
As great parts of the country become cleared of the debris of war such as landmines, there is now a real chance for the kids to be kids again. To run around and play. Football can not just serve as a symbolic gesture of a return to normality, but through the schools it can be used to encourage children back into education.
The truth is that there is still great inequality in the distribution of wealth in Angola, and despite its large reserves of natural resources such as oil, the kids in the rural parts are some of the most disadvantaged in the world. It’s not their fault that civil war gripped the country for almost all their lives.
The facts make pretty harsh reading:
- 4 million people displaced from their homes
- 100,000 children separated from families
- 750,000 children lost one/both parents
-
60% of the population are children
But children are children irrespective of the circumstances in which they find themselves. Like most kids they're mad about football and love nothing more than a kick about with their mates – only they have to use homemade balls made from bits of plastic bags tied together with string.
At the moment over 50% of Angola’s children don’t go to school. By giving away as many footballs as we did (over 3,000) to so many schools, many of which were newly established, we did our bit to help them increase attendance and performance.
We know we made a real difference to the kids of Angola, by providing them with some much needed fun as well as a strong incentive to go to school. So simple yet so effective.
A big thank you to our partners: SOS Children’s Villages, BP Angola, The Premier League, ING Real Estate, BOOST, Handicap International, RISE, The Halo Trust, Agility.
And our volunteers: Paul Clarke, Christine Davey, Bob Wilson, Dirk Lucas.
Please join in and click here to give a ball for our next project.