Refugee VI football club is an initiative by Ephraim Ntlamo 17 years old. Refugee VI is a youth soccer club based in Cape Town, South Africa.  It was formed in September 2009. The purpose of this team is not only to kick some balls around.  According to the United Nations Refugee Agency [UNHCR] South Africa hosts some 40,00 refugees and over 100,000 asylum -seekers. A large part of these refugees are unaccompanied children between the age group of 15 and 18 who fled their countries on their own without any friend nor family member. After the xenophobic attacks in May 2008  the relationship between foreign nationals from other African states  and South African local communities became fragile.  As a refugee child my self I thought it would be necessary to form a sport institution that will can be part of the solution towards the difficult integration process and that will also give refugee children something  to keep themselves busy thinking positively about life, bring back the the fun, friendship, self esteem and confidence which I learned we  refugee children miss badly.

The real issue that drove me to spend most of my time getting this team together was the fact that refugee children face different sorts of discrimination. This discrimination becomes mostly visible in schools or in public transport. I felt that there is a need of communication between and mutual understanding of refugees and the local communities. The challenge is how can this be achieved? In my opinion, this difficult integration process can easily be achieved through sport. So the idea of Refugee VI is that we play soccer while spreading the message and the awareness about refugees. Like, where do we come from? What made us flee our country?  How did we make it to South Africa? The idea is for us refugees not to isolate ourselves from the locals but to have a good rewarding relationship that benefits the community and the country as a whole. We have a few South African players in the team.

Why the name Refugee VI?  Refugees  in South Africa come mostly from the following  6 nations: Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, Somalia, and D.R.C

Lastly and most importantly Refugee VI serves to persuade other refugee children to consider education as the way to success or a better life. We meet after training and discuss issues like HIV/AIDS  and other sexually transmitted diseases. So far the idea has worked very well, some of the boys gave up their  jobs in the vine yard farms and look forward to brighten thier futures by attending school next year

IF WE CAN PLAY SOCCER TOGETHER ,WE CAN STOP XENOPHOBIA TOGETHER !

When FIFA announced that South Africa will host the World Cup everyone was happy, Nelson Mandela was even happier. Somebody asked me: “Siphe, why do you think he is this happy”. My response was that he was the man that stood up against racism. Sport is now helping fighting racism.

Firstly, I would like to have a look at some positive views that South Africans have, on why we should care about the 2010.
This 2010 soccer project is making our country beautiful, through the building of new hotels, roads and bridges. For example we are having something that we never had before: the GAUTRAIN. Stadiums and train tracks will last for a long time and create history and beauty.

During the FIFA Confederations Cup, Bafana Bafana did very well and every citizen was happy that our team went through the semi-finals. I think we should say: “Thank you Mr Santana”, because he did a great job improving the team’s style and confidence. The players committed themselves to making their supporters and citizens proud. Proud of the country that we live in, instead of ashamed of our country because it’s always losing.

The soccer world cup is giving South Africa a chance to proof that it is as good as any other country in the world when it comes to organizing such a huge event. The 2010 world cup makes South Africa to be recognised in the world. We should be proud. The decision, which country will host the world cup and can be trusted in organizing it successfully, is a huge decision to make for FIFA.

Some people think that the world cup is just a waste of time and money. People wonder if the development and improvement of buildings, roads and stadiums would have happened if South Africa would not be hosting the 2010 world cup?
Some people say we should not be proud at all, the development of roads, transport, houses should have happened long ago. Why is the government so slow?

South Africa will only loose money instead of gaining some. The economy will not get the big boost as some are hoping for. Why do I say so? Let me give you some real examples. Have a look at the construction of the Stadiums… they are hiring construction companies from outside the country to construct them, instead of empowering locals to gain new skills. Also, the material for the GAUTRAIN is imported instead of produced locally, which means a loss of money. A lot of people think that money spent on the 2010 project will not return in its amount after the world cup.

The opinion of a lot of South Africans, which I really support, is that hiring the very expensive Mr Santana is a waste of money. Why hiring a person that needs to be paid a huge amount, when we have local coaches? This big amount of money could have been used for other ‘development’ issues. No coach in South Africa has ever been paid so much, I believe. We should train our local coaches to get their coaching level up to international standards.

Even though I might sound very negative, I do think we should support our country’s team, be proud and care. If we don’t the others won’t either. Let’s give our country a chance and not only come with negative comments beforehand. South Africa is a lovely country and has a very nice spirit, that makes us believe in each other. We say that ‘we’ as ‘one’, can do more than us separated.

I LOVE MY SOUTH AFRICA AND THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU NOT TO LOVE IT.

*image found under the creative commons: Shine 2010 – 2010 World Cup good news’ photostream

South Africa regularly hosts major international sporting events, and since 1994 has successfully managed some of the greatest – including the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the 2003 Cricket World Cup, in January 2006, the only street race in the inaugural A1 GP World Cup of Motor sport. And the Women’s World Cup of Golf in 2005 and 2006.
But the Football World Cup, the world’s biggest sporting event after the Olympic Games – in terms of television audience, bigger than the Olympics – is in a class of its own.

The country now is under construction corner to corner. Roads, Stadiums, Hotels and also restaurants with high quality food. The mayor of Cape Town, Helen Zille said that the building of the Stadium in Cape Town the poor will benefit. We hope that she will walk the talk.

2010 has created jobs for the people. People will have to work with each other to fight things like xenophobia attacks; because we are going to have different people coming in that are from all over the world.

In this way of hosting the world, I have hope or I wish that our economy will improve in a great way. I would also like to say to the people around the world ‘‘Come and see how beautiful this country is”. I believe that everyone that comes in this dignified country will want to come back again; this can all be caused by the different cultures that you will be interested in.

Hoping that this World cup is bringing success to those who have dreams of playing soccer, and I believe South Africa will deliver that to them. And please to those that have dreams (Globally), please guys don’t give up your dream to stuff like drugs (bad things) because you cannot reach it, but just live it.