Programme Director
Board members of the Love in Action Community House Centre
Executive members of the centre
Young people living in the centre
Councillors present here
MPs and MPLs present
Business people present here
Religious leaders
Community leaders
Celebrities and youth leaders
Ladies and gentlemen
On 29 April 2010, we visited this area whilst I was still the Deputy Minister of Police to launch the Thusong Community Centre. In that meeting, members of this community raised with us many pressing issues, including the plight of the Love in Action Community House Centre.
Key issues raised by the community at the time ranges from unemployment, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, delinquency and lack of sport and recreation facilities.
We are here today to call on you to use sport and recreation education and culture as an instrument to overcome your challenges, difficulties and hardships and reinforce positive values in you and your peers. We do this because the nation is expecting you to do more and to do it well. We all say you, the 2010 youth of Love in Action Community House Centre, can and will do us proud through self development and success.
We are encouraged by your activism in sport and recreation by involving yourselves in numerous sporting activities that develop you and at the same time is able to nurture your talents. South Africans are a respected nation in the field of sport both in Africa and the world.We want you to emulate that spirit and dedication.
We would want to take this opportunity to congratulate you for establishing football teams for both females and males and your enthusiasm which is reflected through your participation in various national leagues.
We would also want to take this opportunity to thank Sasol, Vodacom and Castle for providing an enabling environment for this youth by giving them an opportunity to participate in the Sasol league, Vodacom league and Castle league respectively.
The Ministry of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) will explore means to integrate Love in Action Community House Centre into a pool of sporting and recreation centres that the department supports. This intervention is aimed at confronting the challenges of lack of sporting equipment and facilities that this community raised in the meeting of 29 April this year.
The department will further contribute towards the development of Sport and Recreation in this centre by building capacity for sport activism. This capacity development programme will therefore be a social/community mobilisation initiative for infrastructure development and your active involvement in sport and recreation. We will do this by also donating sporting equipments and other related facilities to the centre.
We know that your efforts, zeal and zest are constantly undermined by the challenges of the lack of sporting equipment, facilities and support. It is therefore, our patriotic duty and civic obligation to respond to that and utilise important and significant days like this to be with you and share whatever we have with you.
We must remind ourselves that our country, South Africa, is a respected nation in Africa and the world. It is a sporting nation with huge sporting talent. Its athletes are feared worldwide because of their commitment and dedication in sport and because of their trust to themselves and their teammates.
Sport and Recreation in our country has revealed incredible potential and success to some world class sports people like Naas Botha, Gerrie Coetzee, Gary Player, Hezekiel Sepeng, Natalie Du Toit, Caster Semenya, Baby Jack Matlala, Simphiwe Shabalala and many more South African greats.
Recording their successes in past years, one is left to acknowledge how these South African greats have managed to build on the foundation of their potentials when many in Africa and the world who kicked off their careers at the same time as these greats; either hung boots or gloves; or even play in lower grades.
Thus, the SRSA trust that for each of you here, a winning performance in any game you play will be a step towards medal glory on the country’s, Africa and even world sports stage and that your years of training and preparation will pay off well in future.
Such commitment and dedication will assist our country in its endeavour of nation building, social cohesion and unity and changing the quality of life of all South Africans for the better.
Thank you!
