Female soccer player ploughs back into community
Altus Sport is involved in various communities around Tshwane.
A Ga-Rankuwa female soccer player is enjoying ploughing back into the community.
Lovejoy Mbulumete (31) is involved in soccer development through a non-governmental organisation (NGO) Altus Sport.
Lovejoy got involved in soccer development to give school girls an opportunity to develop their football careers.
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Lovejoy started playing soccer at primary school where she had to mix it with boys and “all the boys in my class chose me to be in their team, my love grew from there”.
Altus Sport is involved in various communities around Tshwane.
“I played for several girl teams including Ga-Rankuwa Queens, Wintervelt Queens, TuT and Pulltogether.
In 2006, Lovejoy was selected to represent South Africa in a street soccer world cup Germany, the team consisted of boys and girls.
“It was a great experience being part of the team as the only girl and I was given the platform to showcase my talent. Coming back from Germany I decided to plough back into the community.”
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She says the organisation gave her the opportunity to share her experiences in youth development by organising events and using sport as a tool to teach life skills.
“I also formed my own soccer team LJ United in 2010 but I only registered it under the Soshanguve football association in 2015. It is a great challenge to be involved in a male-dominated sport,” she said.
She says when she started at Altus in 2006 as a youth leader she had no experience of coaching or leadership.
“I lacked self-confidence, had low self-esteem and I was never an outspoken person. Having monthly workshops and activities helped me to grow and I gained a lot of experience as we were taught how to run and manage sport programmes in schools and communities, how to work with kids teaching them life skills using sport. We were taught how to plan and prepare a proper training session, how to present ourselves and how to work in a professional manner.”
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