Saturday 20th March saw the launch of Kibera Mpira Mtaani’s John Packard Family Cup Tournament. The highlight of the event was a match between a combined Kibera Mpira Mtaani side and K-Krew – a local group of musical artists and DJs. Despite the rain and mud, the game went well and ended in a 2-2 draw so a rematch is being scheduled for a later date.
The tournament itself is an annual event set up to give the children of Kibera something to do while schools are closed for the month of April. As Kibera Mpira Mtaani goes from strength to strength, its reputation is growing and they are becoming closer to the local community. This means that they can respond to the needs of the community and try to adapt their programs as necessary. To this end, there have been changes to the categories in their latest football tournament.
Players in Under 14s match
The Under 10s category has 24 teams registered and will remain a mixed category with boys and girls on every team. However, the Under 12s is now a boys only category as so many girls have now started playing football they have been given a separate Ladies Under 15s category. Although this means that a number of older female players will not be playing in the tournament this year, it has the advantage that a number of those players have started up their own teams and are participating as coaches. It will also mean more opportunities for female referees as 16 teams have registered for this category as opposed to the 7 or 8 that previously took part in the open Ladies category. This is a great step forward for ladies’ football in Kibera where, like many parts of Kenya, football has traditionally been seen as an activity for boys and men.
Other changes include the introduction of a small league for Under 18s and the scrapping of quarter finals. As many organisations have been concentrating on tournaments for younger children, there have been fewer opportunities for the older ones to compete. Kibera Mpira Mtaani decided to address this issue and is running a league from April to October for 12 teams. Each of these teams has paid an entry fee of 1,000ksh to participate and this will help with the running costs of the league. The reasoning behind scrapping the quarter finals was to create the opportunity for every team to play more matches within their pool rather than be eliminated after just 4 or 5 matches.
Match at Undugu Grounds
All in all, 122 teams have registered to take part in the John Packard Family Cup this year. Until very recently, there was no sponsor for this tournament to take place in 2010. Thanks to a last minute donation to Vision Africa from Diageo in Scotland, some of the costs were covered and after a meeting with the coaches, it was agreed that teams would contribute a small registration fee of 100ksh each which would assist with the cost of referees. For us, this demonstrated the importance of the tournament that teams were willing to make that effort in order to allow it to go ahead. We thank them for their co-operation and wish them all the best in the tournament.
As with many sports development programs the purpose behind this tournament is not just about playing football. Kibera Mpira Mtaani has been working with CARE Kenya and will be partnering with them throughout the tournament. While teams are playing in a match, peer counsellors will mentor other teams and spectators on lifeskills and subjects such as “stigma and discrimination against those living with HIV/AIDS”. Partnerships like these are invaluable as they create opportunities for children and youths to be given accurate information about topics that are relevant to their lives.
With the finals day scheduled for 15th May, the John Packard Family Cup promises to be a great event for the local community. By that date, over 460 matches will have taken place thanks to a tremendous effort by the committee members from Kibera Mpira Mtaani.
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