400 Footballs for Malawi

 

The German Bundesliga football club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim (www.achtzehn99.de) has donated 400 brand new footballs to Support Malawi Heidelberg e.V. They will be distributed to Malawian youth football clubs and schools. The first ones were already distributed in April 2013 near the capital, Lilongwe, during a project trip. The remaining balls will be distributed among children and youths throughout Malawi, in consultation with Hon. Enoch Chihana, the Minister for Youth und Sport, and the Roscher Youth Development Center in Rumphi.

 

 

 Esther Grant, entrepreneur and founder of a school complex near Salima, and Support Malawi e.V. chairman Heinrich Wegener, at the hand-over of the first balls.

 

With the footballs, the Bundesliga club TSG Hoffenheim and Support Malawi Heidelberg e.V. are helping to make the world a slightly better place. Children all over the world love to play football. In Malawi, children do not receive nearly as much care and attention as we are used to in Europe. There is a lack of primary and high schools throughout the country, and they do not have our system of vocational training. There are far too few teachers able to teach children under the most basic conditions. The teachers are trained in special Teacher Trainings Colleges (TTC), which will also be receiving some of the first footballs.

 

 The director of St. Joseph’s Teacher Trainings College in Bembeke, Sister Lizzy, welcomes the first balls.

 

Donations to Support Malawi e.V. paid for the 400 footballs to be transported to Malawi, where some of them were stored in the ministry for sport in the capital, Lilongwe, until they were distributed by the Roscher youth sport centre, which was founded in honour of the first German explorer in Malawi, Albrecht Roscher, with the support of the German ambassador to Malawi, Dr. Peter Woeste. Abrecht Roscher started to explore Lake Malawi in 1859. The director of the youth centre, Moir Walita Mkandawire, was responsible, with the support of the minister for sport, for planning the action in Malawi.

 

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 The assistant to the minister for sport, Stanley Kumwenda (on the left) and the director of the Roscher youth sport centrum, Moir Walita (on the right).

 

 "Football is of course a welcome sport for Malawian children and youths as well", says the minister for sport, Enoch Chihana. "Whenever they play ball games they are engaging in meaningful activity, learning team spirit, practicing fair-play, and perhaps even producing the next TSG Hoffenheim player." During the following project trip in November, Heinrich Wegener gathered impressions for TSG Hoffenheim and Support Malawi e.V. about the fair distribution of the balls, and was shown some examples.

 

 Hon. Enoch Chihana (with the ball), the Minister for Youth and Sport, with a group of youngsters.

 

Education remains a major challenge in Malawi. It will take some time until even the last villages have a teacher and a primary school. Support Malawi Heidelberg e.V. tries with great enthusiasm to support the situation financially and organizationally, so the football donation by TSG 1899 Hoffenheim is a welcome initiative to help the people in Malawi. And when children tear across the pitch with a brand-new football, it makes for happy moments in their, and our, lives.

 

Executive Director Moir Walita Mkandawire distributing footballs

      

Project meeting with the Minister for Youth and Sport

 

 

(November 2013)