02. Who are we?
Heads up, South Africa! Two years after the FIFA World Cup, soccer is still alive and kicking on the streets around the country, as the annual Kia Street Soccer league launches in May. This year, for the first time, provincial winners from each region will be flown to Johannesburg to compete for the title of National Street Soccer Champion, in a grand display of how all roads lead to soccer success.
Sporting Chance, in association with title sponsor KIA and associate sponsors Foodzone, Dawn Wing, Mille and Supersport Let’s Play, will roll out the national neighbourhood street soccer programme that will reach approximately 6000 boys and girls under the age of 13, empowering and exposing them to a brighter future through the valuable lessons of sport.
Already well established in Gauteng, Western Cape, KZN and Eastern Cape, the KIA Street Soccer programme is the largest of its kind. Its great success last year has propelled it into a new province in 2012, with incorporation of the Free State. With many rural communities keen to participate in the programme, the inclusion of the Free State is a big step towards making street soccer available to all South African youth, whether urban or rural-based.
Conceptualised and co-ordinated by youth sports development agency Sporting Chance, the Kia Street Soccer Programme, supported by FIFA and SAFA, teaches life skills through the game of soccer, to kids who need it most, where they need it most. Their communities in the 40 regions are hindered by poverty and crime, and lack in adequate and safe facilities or stimulating after-school and weekend activities.
