Soccer Festival

During a (Christmas) break that was supposed to be full of R&R, the SWB team spent their time gearing up for the first annual Kampala Youth Festival. Following many consumed airtime minutes, grueling meetings with prospective festival sponsors, and ‘boda-ing’ around the city, the festival was nearly around the corner.

Upon the arrival of the 100+ kids on the morning of January 3^rd, the coaches were getting their teams organized and separated, and volunteers were attempting to sort the kids by age as best they could. Once all of the kids had been herded into their respective groups, chants consisting of “soccer…festival” and “B.O.B” could be heard in front of the youth center.

Each day, the kids arrived around 930 am, and loosely gathered into their assigned groups. When most of the team had been accounted for, the coach walked their team up the hill to the pitch. Doing some icebreakers, warm-ups, and stretching were all a part of the morning daily routine.  Once all of the groups were accounted for, and warmed up, a circuit-style (where groups rotate in a circle, spending roughly 30 min per station) program, a small-sided tournament, or a scavenger hunt took up the rest of the time on the daily docket. Ensuing the 2+ hours at the pitch, all of the kids hid away from the sun (under a big tree) and listened to a guest speaker, who usually was a non-SWB member and chose to address the kids on a youth development-related topic. To cap the day off, the kids rushed in an orderly fashion down to the youth center, to receive a healthy portion of rice and beans (prepared by some of our wonderful women of the SWB English class).

Taking time to evaluate the festival in its entirety, there is no uncertainty on how monumental this was for the Kampala community and for Soccer Without Borders. The tiny community of Nsambya has now hosted a very lucrative festival, allowing for all the members of the community to witness the integration of refugees and nationals. Throughout the week, various kids remarked on how ‘cool’ it was that everyone was treated equally and with great respect – there was an absence of bickering and tension between nationals and refugees. For SWB, huge strides were made as we worked towards our goal, of being widely recognized as a top youth development NGO in Uganda. Furthermore, another victory for SWB occurred when we realized how many more kids we indirectly recruited to be a part of our regular programming; the more kids we attract, the more kids we will positively impact in the long-run.

Being a part of the entire festival process (planning, facilitating, and evaluating) was quite enjoyable, because this experience enabled me to become exposed to what managing and running a festival/camp is all about. Only playing a smaller role in previous camps I’ve worked at never really exposed me to all of the facets, unlike the one SWB just ran in Kampala. I am utterly grateful to be a member of such a great organization, attracting a multitude of children from differing backgrounds, while using soccer as a method to provide them with life knowledge and lessons.