Update from Zimbabwe
Posted May 15th, 2008 • Category: Homeless World Cup News • By James Maiden
Adelaide street soccer coordinator, James Maiden has just returned from two weeks in Zimbabwe working with the Zimbabwean Street Soccer Project. He has started filming a documentary on them and their journey to the Melbourne 2008 Homeless World Cup. The trip revolved around team selections at a national tournament held in Hatcliffe where the program takes place.
“It was amazing; six teams were competing in the concrete car park of the one shops in the area where Tawanda, the coordinator lives. Life there is pretty tough; there was no food in the shops and inflation is incredible.”
Tawanda and his team of volunteers run the street soccer program with no income, He organises hundreds of kids and young people in the street soccer program and runs HIV/AIDS workshops and other activities for orphans and those effected by the epidemic. Soccer is the true passion of the people and on every corner you will see mobs of kids and young people kicking a soccer ball around or even just a makeshift ball made of rolled up plastic. The national selections exposed some amazing talent and this years team will be a hot contender for the Cup.
Tawanda now has the momentous task of getting the team organised to travel. He has to travel 25 km by bus just to check an email at an internet cafe in the city and the line to get anything from cash to visa/passport applications takes the best part of a day.
His project needs our support to ensure he can get the team to Melbourne for the Homeless World Cup. If you are interested in supporting the Zimbabwean Street Soccer project please contact James Maiden 0417 482 994 or email him at: streetsoccersa@bigissue.org.au
James Maiden - James has been coordinating the SA Street Soccer program since October 2006. Moving to Adelaide from Sydney with a background in playing and coaching rugby he made the transition to the round ball with the Street Socceroos. He has a masters in Natural History Film Making and is pursuing a passion for documentary film making, currently editing a doco on the Street Socceroos trip to the Homeless World Cup in Copenhagen 2007.
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