Programme Director;
Representative of Western Cape Department of Education;
Chairman of Mvelaserve, Mr Mickey Xhayiya;
Chairman: Cape Town All Stars, Mr Lunga Ncwana;
Football Players;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen;
Today, we officially launch the Mvelaserve Cape Town All Stars Khayelitsha High School Football League in this province of the Western Cape. This day is the fulfillment of the promise made by the prominent business people of Cape Town at the launch of the Cape Town All Stars in November 2010. They promised, together with the Ministry of Sport and Recreation, that “early 2011 we will be launching a school’s tournament in Khayelitsha”.
Ladies and gentlemen, this launch is taking place during the “Freedom Month”, April, as declared by Cabinet. It should be emphasised that, April is not only the Month we celebrate the 1994 democratic breakthrough and freedom, but it also symbolises the death of the son of the soil, comrade Chris Hani. At the same time it commemorates, the death of Thamsanqa “Pom” Rhubusana.
This year is the 17th Anniversary of their death of the abovementioned heroes and lest we forget these stalwarts and combatants of our revolution, including our icons such as OR Tambo who also passed on 24 April 1993, almost a year before the 1994 elections.
As we launch the Cape Town High School Soccer League, today, we cannot ignore the immense sacrifices that these heroes, (including Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu) of our struggle for liberation have made in the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, and peaceful Sport and Recreation discourse in this country. It is, therefore, befitting to reflect on their history and selfless contributions into the freedom and democracy we enjoy today.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) welcomes this initiative. Programmes and events like the Schools League directly responds to the vision and mission of the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa “to improve the quality of life of all South Africans, foster social cohesion and enhance nation building by maximising access, development and excellence at all levels of participation in sport and recreation”.
To qualify this statement, SRSA is convinced that “although no one should be excluded in sport, cognisance must be taken of the imbalances of the past and the greater needs of inclusion in historically disadvantaged and excluded groups and communities, particularly the poor and rural areas”.
In our Road Map we indicated that School Sport is the bedrock for mass participation, social cohesion and nation building; and that schools sport is a strategic instrument to defocus young people from anti-social behaviours. It is therefore encouraging to witness initiatives like these, led by community and business leaders that will re-ignite and re-engineer schools sport in support of the national agenda.
This in our view is the task of ensuring that the face of sport and recreation changes fundamentally, especially after the successful hosting of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Through the Legacy project of the FIFA 2010 World Cup, we must make sure that schools sport and community sport become the corner-stone of mass participation and club development.
We should take advantage, with zeal and zest, of the Western Cape “Mass participation; Opportunity and Access; and Development and growth” strategy, hereinafter referred to as MOD. These MOD centres, according to the Western Cape government, are staffed by one sports coach and one sport co-coordinator with fully functioning sport programmes in schools, and that all learners are given an opportunity equal to those that have progressed into local clubs and teams, even federations. We can’t allow our people and youth to miss such opportunities that are initiated through a budget from the state.
It is true that, we must encourage as many young people as possible, in schools and in communities, to be active in sport and recreation as the way to deal strategically with the “burden disease”, as they say, it involves “lifestyle diseases as a result of smoking, substance abuse, a lack of exercise, poor diet and eating habits, even social dysfunction.”
In the same vein, as we referred to it on 13 April 2011, in our Budget Speech that; Dr Steve Makone, known as Kalamazoo said: “Such aggressive push for school sport is long overdue. Not only will such a development help in improving the standard of play in the different sport, it will assist in promoting the health of our youth.”
We are tempted to encourage Kalamazoo School Sport programme to come on board to partner with the Cape Town High School League programme and other programmes of this nature. This will make us to achieve inclusivity and reach consensus on what is our collective contribution in the development of sport and talent identification programmes.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as we finalise our collaboration pact with the Department of Basic Education as part of our immediate task to revive school sport, particularly in rural areas and townships. We will integrate all these programmes and initiatives. We will do so because, we believe that the future of the South Africa youth lies in positioning schools as “incubators and nurseries” for talented and professional sportspersons.
In the same vein, we are partnering with the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and Supersport in the School Sport programme in Gauteng. Together with SRSA, the PSL and Supersport will launch a tailored programme of twinning schools with the PSL teams for youth development in soccer.
All these bold initiatives can only be hampered by the glaring absence of sport and recreation facilities in our communities; and this situation is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated, especially in the 16 years of the democratic government rule in South Africa. We have to break this dreadful infrastructure backlog, particularly in disadvantaged and neglected communities.
However, the advancement of sport and recreation development in our country cannot rely only on government. It is, therefore, against this background that we call on the private sector and individual business people; and various stakeholders, including NGO’s and the international community to join hands with us in order to realise these objectives.
“Forward Ever; Backward Never”
Thank you.
