Soccer and Cisco Networking Academy Training Aims to Help Underprivileged Youth in South Africa

January 2, 2008

By Jason Deign, News@Cisco

Out-of-school youths, as well as members of previously disadvantaged communities in South Africa, are benefiting immensely through playing while learning.

The Cisco® Networking Academy® there has been integrated with soccer training to give homeless youths the chance to learn about technology at the same time as training for the beautiful game.

The soccer academy project gives young people in homeless shelters sports training and mentoring combined with IT tuition as a means of helping them gain skills that will help them become valued members of society.

The South African initiative actually began in Liverpool, United Kingdom with a tie-up between the Networking Academy, a sustainable education program company called iTpod and Lee Sharpe Soccer, a sports training outfit set up by a former U.K. international player.

In the United Kingdom, the combination of first-class training in soccer and IT proved irresistible to underprivileged youngsters, many of whom are driven to delinquency through a lack of self-esteem and limited skills.

The soccer academy idea spread across the country and was even exported to the United States, through an initiative involving top U.K. soccer club Manchester United.

Jane Lewis, U.K. Academy manager, recommended a partnership in South Africa based on the significance of the country hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

This way, Cisco supports South Africa's initiatives in getting communities excited about the prospects of a global showcase in 2010 while at the same time opening up new opportunities through sport and information and communications technologies (ICT).

The twist in South Africa is that the scheme has initially been directed almost exclusively at homeless kids who traditionally have problems integrating into society.

Following an announcement in September 2006, South Africa's first soccer academy was launched in April 2007 at the Ark City of Refuge in Cape Town, in a high-profile event backed by iTpod and Lee Sharpe Soccer where the sports star himself put in an appearance.

The Ark provides a temporary home, as well as food and clothing, to some 3000 destitute, homeless, unemployed, drug-addicted and abandoned children, women, men and families.

"Most of the people are from homes that have been destroyed by the country's AIDS epidemic," says Alfie Hamid, area Academy manager for Cisco in South Africa and Emerging Southern Africa.

"These are people who have lost homes and belongings. Most of the kids have nothing to do, no structured recreation."

The soccer academy helps to resolve this by providing structure in people's lives and teaching teamwork and responsibility. The project offers male and female soccer training and netball to a minority of students who prefer it.

The program also offers technology training in the form of a Networking Academy IT Essentials course, run by two volunteers from a body called Ambassadors in Sport South Africa, part of an international Christian organization that uses soccer as a means of spreading the Gospel.

The volunteers were trained as IT Essentials instructors at a Regional Academy run by iTpod and are being supported by the College of Cape Town for Further Education and Training, which is both a local Cisco Networking Academy and an Ambassadors in Sport academy backed by Lee Sharpe.

Currently, virtually all of the children at the Ark City of Refuge have enrolled in the soccer classes, but due to equipment constraints only 10 students at a time are able to take IT training.

To limit intake, only kids who have had schooling up to age 12 or 13 are admitted on the IT Essentials course. They undertake two and a half hours of classes, twice a week, with soccer training on other days.

Despite the fact that the soccer academy initiative has only been in operation for a relatively short time, the local community's positive reaction to the scheme has already prompted plans for expansion.

These include the opening of a soccer academy in Cape Town's Pollsmoor maximum security prison, in the suburb of Tokai, and the launch of further academies in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

In addition, "the project will not stop at sports and IT," says Hamid. "We will also train people in arts and crafts so that they can create things to sell, enabling them to make something of their lives. This is all about helping people to sustain themselves."

The expansion plans come amid a general growth in the Academy, with 18 Academies being added this year to the country's current complement of 52, and are tied in with preparations for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Says Hamid: "The idea is to have 10 soccer academies up and running by the time the World Cup comes here. It is an initiative that has the backing of the Premier's office, the Minister of Education and the Ministry of Social Development."

In June this year, the Minister of Communications, Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, commended the Networking Academy, saying: "We applaud Cisco for identifying this critical niche area in development: an effort to raise our country's ICT.

"Cisco has bravely reduced the gap and is in the forefront of providing ICT services to schools, colleges and universities within Southern Africa."

Clearly there is a lot of political will to show how soccer and technology training can help improve the lot of underprivileged communities. But for Hamid what is most important is what is already happening with individuals on the scheme.

"When we did the Ark launch a youngster of 18 or 19 came up to me," he recounts. "He had lost both parents to AIDS and had nothing. But he said he felt good because he now knew the world had not forgotten him."

Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.