Jabulani – A home of talent
'We want to see ourselves being successful and playing for SA and representing our country'.
Samuel Rakodi, a sports caretaker identified a need to expose the facilities and talent of dedicated young people from informal settlements.
One of his most recent targets was the Jabulani Informal Settlement. There Rakodi found a group of passionate young sportsmen and women working hard to reach their dream. Coming from a disadvantaged background does also not faze them. For them, hope is not lost and they want to follow in the footsteps of Edward Manqele, striker from Swallows who was nurtured at the Jabulani sports complex.
Since Rakodi and team took them under their wings, practice sessions are held everyday in order to keep fit and fight to keep young people off the streets to stay away from using illegal substances like drugs and alcohol abuse.
Puseletso Shabangu (striker) and netball captain said “We want to see ourselves being successful and playing for SA and representing our country.
“We would like to attract sponsors hence to why they are putting in work. We need balls, first aid kits for injuries and uniforms for our team,” she added.
Jabulani netball team participated in the Randfontein Local Municipality Youth Games 2014 and came out second place taking home a Silver cup and medals with them.
The Jabulani soccer team won the Mayor’s Cup for three consecutive years from 2012 to 2014.
According to captain of the soccer team, Sacks Alam “We also try to enter as many tournaments as we can, in most cases we have no sponsorship which makes it hard for us to go through. Some of our team mates will not have funds to pay for transport and affiliation fee which is normally requested in order to take part in the tournaments.
“Most of our team mates also do not have soccer boots and we don’t have cones for training, uniforms nor first aid kits.”
One of our players Isaac Molatjie central defender passed his trial at Trap Zone this is an example of hard work and patience pays off.
The sports complex offers variety of pitches from soccer, netball court, cricket pitch, these facilities are utilized by the community of Jabulani and they are open for anyone including neighboring areas to use them.
