Today that kid is the captain of our under-16 team. He is going to go places.
I started a local football club, which we launched in Nyanga (Cape Town). On the morning of the launch, there was this one kid who played for a team in Delft, where he lives. He decided to join our team, but before he could do that, he needed official clearance from his old team. He had no taxi fare to get back to Delft, but was so determined that he walked the entire distance there. I’m not sure how far it is, but it took him a few hours to get there. It really is quite a distance.
Also, to get that official clearance, he needed to pay R150. He didn’t have the money, of course, so you know what he did? He went to the president of the club’s house and offered to clean the club’s toilets, bathrooms and dressing rooms – everything – to make up for not having that R150. And he did it. He gave that club a proper, proper cleaning. Then he walked all the way back to Nyanga, where we were, and joined our team.
When he got home that evening, his mother gave him such a hiding, because she found out he’d been walking that long distance on that dangerous freeway. But he told me afterward that he didn’t mind that, because he got what he wanted.
Today that kid is the captain of our under-16 team. He is going to go places. The lengths he was willing to go to join another team – which he maybe saw as a better opportunity – was something that really struck me.
You know, we often sit and complain about things. But here I sit, earning a salary and knowing what I am going to eat this evening. Working with kids like these has really opened my eyes. It’s made me look at things so much differently. – Tauriq Hassen, 29, as told to Carl Collison, the Other Foundation’s Rainbow Fellow at the Mail & Guardian