BOOTS FOR AFRICA HELPING COMMUNITIES IN UGANDA

The project, Dewe School of Art, provides a centre for people in the village of Dewe, bringing the community together to learn new skills and developing their talents. The local football team Dewe FC is connected to the project and manned by people from the village and surrounding area.

The manager of the local football team, Mbona Denis, works at the project as a voluntary youth counsellor and literacy teacher. The team consists mainly of local fishermen and sand-miners. They train most evenings and the players can also bring their children along to training sessions to take part in a separate training session for the young ones.

The team train on a field which is largely dust and mud and uses wooden goal posts held together by nails, and held in place by rocks. Lake Victoria is just a couple of hundred metres away and a path runs through the pitch for people to access the fishing village. Training sessions are regularly punctuated by fishermen and motorcycles passing through in front of the goal posts on their way to or from the landing site.

Some of the players use footwear, but most play bare foot. The children do not have any boots and because of this many of the players have cuts or lesions on their feet from working during the days and playing football in their free time.

Laurence Alexander, who kindly represented Boots For Africa whilst on his travels, was invited to regularly train with the team in the evenings, “ I was a bit taken aback to see so many playing barefoot, especially with all the cow-dung everywhere. The first night I was going to train, one of the students of the project and a player for the team, Ben Sserewanga, had several cuts on his feet. He told me he had cut them on some nails by mistake whilst doing his day job - wood carving. He was planning to play that night in bare feet, but I said he had to use a pair of the boots provided by Boots For Africa to be safe. He was over the moon.”

Without a leather ball to use, the team will sometimes use a ball made by tying together leaves from the local banana plant. It does not give much bounce but is better than nothing. The boots were donated to the team and will be mainly used on match days to help their shelf life.
Nineteen year old Senyongo Isaac, the team captain and son of the village Chairman said, "The boots and balls provided by Boots For Africa provide a massive lift for the team. We all dream of becoming professionals in the next couple of years and this will help us achieve our goal. With the jerseys and shoes, they can grow up and develop their talent for football.”

Team Manager Mbona Denis explained, "We will take care of the boots and that will be good. Having the extra balls has also given the kids more chance to play and practise while the adults train."

Jenny Tims, Boots For Africa Project Manager said “To donate boots to Dewe FC is fantastic, and to receive feedback via video link highlights to us at Boots For Africa that our work is benefitting those who need it most.”