The NFA Galz & Goals youth team returned from the Hessequa Cup this week with two trophies and a lot of new friends.
The Namibia Under 16 girls’ football team was victorious in both the 6-a-side and 11-a-side tournaments held in the town of Riversdale, Western Cape last week, not conceding a single goal throughout.
The team, selected from girls aged 10-15 involvied in the NFA Galz & Goals project won both competitions in style, beating the local Ha! Qua Fillies team 7-0 in the 11-a-side and Panorama FC 3-0 in the 6-a-side finals.
Abrille Beukes of St Georges School in Windhoek bagged a hat trick among goals from Carmel Don, Cadisha Kazimbu, Cheniece Schrader and Annouscka Kordom as the players from Namibia stormed to victory in the Ha!Qua game.
In the 6-a-side final, goals from Carmel Don, Celine Tjombe and a beautiful chip off the crossbar from Sanna Links sealed the silverware.
The Namibian team played at a level far above the South African opposition throughout, impressing the crowd with their patient passing and creative attacking play, while their defence was rarely called into action. The squad performed tremendously as a unit, sharing the goals throughout the team with 14 different goal scorers, as the players rotated their positions throughout the tournament.
During the trip the project team played host to the entire Hessequa municipality in a day dedicated to using football as a tool to promote health and social responsibility. Girls from Namibia took part in Kicking AIDS Out Activities lead by coaches from SCORE, drafted in from Cape Town for the event.
Their fellow finalists, the girls from the Ha! Qua Youth programme in Riversdale also took part as the community of nearby town Slangrivier looked on. The activities from the Galz & Goals programme use football to demonstrate simple messages about life skills and specific HIV related topics.
Provincial Health Minister Theuns Botha in attendance told the community of the importance of using sport to promote health among the youth and praised the NFA project and it’s partners SCORE and UNICEF for its achievements so far.
The international tournament also featured a cultural evening where teams from different cultures performed to the boisterous crowd. The Namibian girls performed a song about protecting yourself from HIV and a traditional Owambo dance and were awarded first prize, the crowd cheering them on to victory.
NFA project coordinator Jackey Gertze spoke of her pride in the young Namibian squad “these girls came to the home of the 2010 World Cup and made Namibia proud. The spirit in which the games were played and the way in which they carried our project’s message of empowering girls to live a healthy life through football not only won them the trophies, but a whole community of new fans.”
Thanking the Organizing committee chairman and Mayor of Hessequa Chris Taute at the closing ceremony, the Galz & Goals team captain Lovisa Mulunga, aged 15, said “it is not really about the trophies and medals for us, we thank you for giving the kids the opportunity to play football and to keep them off the streets”.
Lovisa was referring to the Mayor’s position as chairman of the Ha! Qua Youth Programme, which also uses football to teach life skills but also provides the local youth with training in trades and crafts to keep them off the Riversdale streets and help them to stay healthy and gain employment in the future.