News
2010-08-19
Growing dreams in the Upington township of Paballelo has been one of the most rewarding projects we’ve undertaken. That’s because this dream has inspired contributions from individuals across South Africa and from many parts of the world, including Sweden, Spain, the United States and the UK.
Morne and Keturah de Klerk are photographers from Australia, who spent three months travelling 8 000kms through the poorest villages and townships of South Africa, capturing images and stories for what became a much-acclaimed book called Africa’s Beautiful Game.
While the World Cup showcased the richest players on earth, Keturah and Morne’s journey brought them close to the hope and joy the beautiful game brings to people living in deep poverty. And part of their trip took them to the townships of Upington, a visit of special significance to Morne who grew up in the Northern Cape.
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2010-08-12
One of the many things we love about Dreamfields is the way in which individuals and small groups of people can join hands and grow dreams. The project has benefited hugely from the generosity of South African corporations – starting of course with our founding partners BHP Billiton and Old Mutual. But we’ve been inspired by the way ordinary South Africans have also decided to make a difference through the beautiful game.
As the World Cup drew closer, we had a run of great initiatives, coming from big-hearted school children, alumni from small-town schools, foreign football fans coming out for 2010 and birthday boys and girls:
• Sello Moloantoa, a businessman from Centurion, bought a DreamBag for Phuzamanzi Primary, his old school in Standerton. Sello believes he owes much of his success to his first school: “This is where I learned more about perseverance, dedication and hard work. There were learners walking long distances, leaving home at 5am and getting back from school at 7pm, barefoot and hungry.” Sello also donated a laptop with software, an overhead projector and whiteboards for all the classrooms. Sello runs his own electrical company which he has called Phuzamanzi - named after his school. “I believe that we all have a responsibility of ploughing back to our own communities, especially the disadvantaged. However small a contribution, the kids will appreciate it, and some lives have been changed.”
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2010-08-06
In Mogale City, out to the west of Johannesburg, a soccer project is taking shape which could map out the road that Dreamfields tries to follow over the next three years – wide-spread participation at school level, regular weekly league football and an opportunity for the best players to get specialised coaching and high-level competition.
It began at the start of 2010 when gaming and leisure company Silverstar brought Dreamfields on board to help create soccer leagues for primary and secondary schools in the townships of Kagiso, Swanieville and Munsieville. It was a perfect place to work because Department of Basic Education officials had already done great work in those townships getting school sports organised.
The Silverstar Soccer Stars programme was launched at a DreamEvent in Swanieville on March 20, with 10 secondary schools and 22 primaries stepping onto the fields at the Lusaka Sports Complex in brand new kit, and then playing their hearts out for the medals and trophies on display. Except for two trophies – the biggest of the lot.
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2010-07-16
American soccer stars like Landon Donovan, Tim Howard and Clint Dempsey left South Africa soon after their loss to Ghana in the round of 16 eliminated them from the World Cup – but not before they passed on something really special to young people involved in the Dreamfields Project. Working through the United States Embassy in Pretoria, the US Soccer Federation, made a donation of 80 Adidas Joh’bulani soccer balls to Dreamfields. The embassy added some flag vuvuzelas and stylish hats for each of the players.
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2010-07-13
The Dreamfields Project has been honoured with Silver at the Impumelelo 2010 Sustainability Awards, a programme set up in 1999 to encourage and reward best practice and innovation, in both government and the non-governmental sector. This year 240 projects entered the competition, from which 30 were selected for awards presented at a ceremony in Cape Town.
Click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-mekBXqdU
“The programme exists to reinforce the fact that there is no need to reinvent the wheel,” says Impumelelo Executive Director Rhoda Kadalie. “There are South African solutions to South African problems, and the award is a tool to find out what is working and how we can learn from the innovation of others.”
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2010-07-01
The Dreamfields Project has hosted more than 100 DreamEvents but this event was truly special. Seven schools, St. Stithian’s College from Sandton and six other primaries from Ivory Park, met at Rabie Ridge Stadium to celebrate both the the 2010 World Cup and the willingness of young people to reach out to each other.
St. Stithian’s College took part in the DreamEvent both as footballers and contributors. The pupils in the junior school raised R12 000 by bringing money to school every Football Friday, when they were allowed to come dressed in soccer shirts. And this money was used to buy DreamBags for the Wisdom and Ebony Primary Schools in Ivory Park.
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2010-06-15
It’s amazing what can be achieved when someone is bold enough to make the first move – like turning a quarter of a million rand into a DreamField-building fund nearly 6 times bigger!
As part of their contribution to Dreamfields, founding partner Old Mutual puts in R250 000 each year as seed capital for the building of a field.
There was no difficulty choosing this year’s site – the field sits in the heart of the village of Hluvukani, close to the Orpen gate of the Kruger National Park. With a school on one side, a church on the other and shops and a taxi rank close by, it is the main football field in the area – playable, but rough and bumpy. Most important, this part of Mpumalanga is a place where people love their soccer.
To make things happen, though, we needed partners – enter National Treasury and a programme called the Neighbourhood Development Partnership Grant (NDPG). Government uses this fund to uplift struggling areas, rural and urban, by creating create partnerships with the private sector and civil society.
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2010-06-12
The world has arrived and the greatest show on earth is under way – and you can feel the excitement in Hluvukani village and Shongi informal settlement, in Gopane and in Elliotdale. In the places where Dreamfields has worked, far from the host cities, the 2010 pulse is beating just as strongly as it is in Joburg and Cape Town!
At Dreamfields we have always taken a particular view of the World Cup. We need beautiful stadiums and modern airports to make this massive event work – and we’ve got them. But the real factor determining the success of 2010, we believe, is the extent to which ordinary people – children and parents in townships and rural areas – feel that they are part of the celebration.
And so we see our 1 342 DreamBags, 105 DreamEvents and 12 new football fields as – amongst other goals – a contribution towards making South Africa’s World Cup an event we can enjoy with passion and remember with pride. We’ve gone beyond the schools and the children. Small enterprise in rural areas and townships – caterers and welders, DJs and taxi drivers have all learned to love DreamEvents as a source of income and excitement.
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2010-06-04
With the world on the way and the greatest show on earth about to start, the Dreamfields Project is celebrating in the best possible way. With the launch of two new fields, in the Mpumalanga villages of Acornhoek and Hluvukani, and a string of DreamEvents around South Africa we have now invested more than R20-million in townships and rural areas.
And with the handover of DreamBag number 1 334 we have now given football kit to more than 20 000 children. We are proud to say we have helped to make the World Cup pulse beat in the small towns and villages where we work, just as strongly as it does in Joburg and Cape Town.
To get a sense of what Dreamfields has meant to the children whose dreams you have helped to grow, click here to watch this wonderful film.
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2010-05-28
Hotazel is a remote mining town, deep in the heart of the Northern Cape, hundreds of kilometres away from any of the World Cup venues. But even the children of this place now feel part of 2010 and the Dreamfields magic – thanks to our founding partner BHP Billiton.
Dreamfields was invited by BHP Billiton’s manganese division to be a part of their Family Fun Day in Hotazel which provided loads of exciting activities for the whole family, young and old. And to celebrate the company’s incredible contribution to schools soccer in South Africa, they invited eight primary school teams to receive DreamBags of soccer kit and show the crowds what they could do with the ball.
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