Our Dream “When I play soccer, I feel joy inside.” Those words from Lebogang, a matric student in Tshisahulu village in Venda, sum up what the Dreamfields Project is all about. Since our launch in October 2007, we have been working flat out to spread that joy — and many people, ranging from corporations to small companies to kids with huge hearts, are helping us to do that. more... Dreamfields builds dreams in three different ways: DreamBags provide schools with a complete set of kit including boots, everything a team needs to walk out onto the field, ready to take on the world. DreamEvents bring schools, sponsors and the community together for a tournament, an exhilarating all-day celebration of the power of soccer to inspire the best in all of us. DreamFields represent renewed spaces for young people to play — not just restored soccer fields, but symbols of what communities and their partners can achieve by working together. more... more... more...

How You Can Help Thanks to the vision and generosity of our founding partner, BHP Billiton, every Rand you contribute to Dreamfields goes a long way. No contribution is too small and our DreamGrowers range from giant corporations to eight-year-old children, from 60-year-olds celebrating their birthdays to small companies and government departments looking for an opportunity to put back. more...

Featured Dreams:

Funding: Required: R 60,000.00 Received: R 31,035.00 Outstanding: R 28,965.00 Contribute Now Dreams Unlimited – Generation 2022 (1) Together, as South Africans, we delivered a breathtaking World Cup in 2010. Now, can we work together to build a breathtaking team, a team that could really challenge for the World Cup in 2022? At Dreamfields we believe that South Africa can – and we’d like you to help. The 2010 Fifa World CupTM left millions of South Africans with vivid and lasting memories – among them young footballers from the Driekoppies village in Mpumalanga. We got them tickets to see Ivory Coast play in Nelspruit, and we arranged for Thlakanang Primary from Tembisa - winners of the Dreamfields Cup – to go and watch Brazil at Ellis Park. By the year 2022, these young boys will be in their mid-20s, just reaching their peak as players. Much now depends on what kind of football they play in the next three years. We believe that well-organised league soccer at school level will do more than anything else to unearth talent and develop stars – and it will immeasurably improve the atmosphere in our schools. more...

Funding: Required: R 400,000.00 Received: R 290.00 Outstanding: R 399,710.00 Contribute Now ComMin Soccer Field Dream (211) A field where a communities dream can be realised. A place of common ground between rich and poor, black and white, brown and yellow, advantaged and disadvantaged. A level ground where everyone has an opportunity to reach their destiny.   more...

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News

Memories of 2011, Great hope for 2012

At the end of another inspiring year of growing dreams through football, all we can say is thank you. We thank BHP Billiton for being our foundation, the rock on which everything we do is built. Thanks, too, to the many other partners who have invested in communities, schools and children, sharing DreamBags, grandstands and fields, and above all precious time and passion.

No dreams could ever grow without the energy provided by the Department of Basic Education – at national, provincial and district level. We’ve done great things with the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation and with the Development Bank of Southern Africa. We have now invested close on R30-million in townships and rural areas. And looking at our prospects for 2012, there is so much more to come.

The best way we can thank all you dream growers is to share with you how much pleasure we, the Dreamfields team, get from the work that you have enabled us to do. And so we’ve asked each of the team to share their favourite memory from 2011.

Thanks for making the growing of dreams possible.

The Moment: Dreamfields ran a programme of DreamEvents for young girls in partnership with the Provincial Government of the Western Cape. Eight schools played in a final tournament in Cape Town, and the winner was from Leeu-Gamka, a tiny Karoo town of just 4 000 people.

John Perlman’s Memory: “At the final whistle, the joy on the faces of the girls was unforgettable. But my fondest memory was chatting by phone to the coach, Mellyn Willemse, a few days later. He painted a vivid picture of the girls doing slow laps of honour round the town in the back of a bakkie, holding their trophy and medals high, with every child in the school running and cheering behind them. Dreamfields slogan is We Grow Dreams – I really wished I’d been there to see this made real in Leeu-Gamka.

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Sustainable Soccer through DreamLeagues

When the 17 schools taking part in the Gauteng Champions League Festival marched out onto the green grass at the Eldorado Park Stadium, they did so with an extra snap in the stride. That’s because they had earned their place at the Festival the hard way – by giving their best, week in and week out, and winning their local DreamLeagues. Each school walked with the air of champions – which is what they were.

Dreamfields has hosted more than 185 DreamEvents around South Africa, all memorable and special in their own way. But the Gauteng Champions League Festival may well turn out to be one our most significant tournaments. For the past year we have tried to direct everything Dreamfields does towards our most important long-term goal: building up sustainable primary schools football through well-run weekly DreamLeagues.

And so when our partners at the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts Culture and Recreation (GSACR) suggested we host a tournament for top schools, we agreed that qualification for the event should be restricted to DreamLeague winners. We wanted to give clusters providing schools with weekly league play an additional incentive.

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Growing the Dream Growers

The teachers were already excited as they headed for our DreamField near the Kruger Park – looking forward to a day of learning new skills which they could share with their school teams at football practice the following week. But that quiet excitement shot off the radar screen when they saw who would be coaching them.

Ex-Orlando Pirates coach Ruud Krol had travelled with Dreamfields to share his vast knowledge with 42 teachers from the villages of Acornhoek and Hluvukani. And when the teachers saw the winner of three trophies with the Buccaneers waiting to work with them, the effect was immediate.

“They instantly felt like they were going to be champions because they had the inspiration of learning from one of South Africa’s top coaches,” says Dreamfields’ Silas Mashava. “We were all very excited to realise we would be given lessons by someone who was a top player and a top coach,” says Mutshutshu Mmbude, chairman of school sports in Acornhoek. 

In 2011, Dreamfields has provided 382 teachers and school sports assistants with an opportunity to attend an introductory course on coaching young footballers. Participants have come from Tshisahulu in the north and Stellenbosch in the south, from Lichtenberg in the North West and Tjakastad in the east. Most of these opportunities have been provided by Discovery Vitality.

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