A Namibian U15 girls’ soccer team leaves for Oslo on Thursday to participate in the Norway Cup, one of the biggest youth football festivals in the world. The tournament, which has been held annually since 1974, last year attracted an estimated 30 000 boys and girls from 42 countries who played a total of 4 000 matches. Namibia has participated with boys teams on two previous occasions, but this year marks the first time that they will send a girls team.
The Namibian team’s participation was made possible by financial support from amongst others, the non governmental organisation SCORE Namibia, the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee Confederation of Sport and Namibia’s Ministry of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture.
The national manager of SCORE Namibia, Jacqui Shipanga said that the girls were selected to represent Namibia after winning a ‘Kicking AIDS Out Youth Sport Festival in Mariental during April.
“Even though football is the main attraction, the Norway Cup project engaged an education programme on HIV/AIDS. In line with the objectives of the Norway Cup project, SCORE focuses on children and youth living in underprivileged communities and utilises sport as a powerful medium to bring about sustainable community development, individual empowerment and social transformation and to build international and intercultural understanding,” she said.
“The annual Kicking AIDS Out Youth Sport Festival in Namibia is therefore used as a tool to address a healthy lifestyle through sport, and we believe that creating early awareness of the HIV epidemic, inter-cultural understanding and by motivating behavioural change among our youth, will lead to self discipline, leadership, respect for others and team work,” she added.
Jacky Gertse, the head of the NFA’s Women’s Desk thanked Shipanga and SCORE for their contribution to women’s football.
“SCORE helps to provide information and how to avoid early pregnancies and how to make the right choices in their communities. If all young girls are taught by them we will have a great future and they will become responsible mature adults,” she said.
Gertse also thanked the secretary general of the NFA Barry Rukoro for his support of women’s football.
Rukoro, for his part, congratulated ‘the two Jackies’ for their hard work and upliftment of women’s football in Namibia.
“When they started two years ago, I could se that something had hit the scene with their enthusiasm and hard work. Since then I have become a strong disciple and I really love women’s football,” he said.
“It’s very important that girls play football. We wanted to make sure that they are girls and play like girls. That’s the message and today we are very proud of them and seeing them in their uniforms,” he said.
Rukoro thanked SCORE and Unicef for their involvement in women’s football.
“We must make sure that we deliver a good service to children and through these projects we have declared war on drugs and alcohol abuse. A child in sport is a child out of court, and a child out of court is a child out of jail,” he added.
The Director of Sport Dr Vetumbuavi Veii applauded the joint initiative between the NFA and the other role layers, saying it was important that they worked together and did not duplicate projects. He also spoke out against ‘age cheating’ and called on parents, teachers and coaches to ensure that it did not happen.
“It does not help with the development of the sport and you are destroying the child in the process. They are always winning when they are young but later on in life they will stop winning and then they will turn to drugs or alcohol. We must get rid of this at all costs,” he said.
The captain of the team, 14-year-old Lovisa Mulunga gave a confident speech thanking all involved and promising that they would return with the trophy.
“When we come back I am sure we will all smile when we present the trophy,” she said.