Day 165

Sunday. Before we left Berlin, Dan set up a go-fund-me campaign to collect money for the local football academy White Crocs United. Football is an important part of life within the local youth and supporting them supports the community. The academy is solely dependent on the work of volunteers and external funds, which come in rarely.
Training and games are taking place on the communal village sand pitch with one set of fixed, net-free full sized goals. For the younger players sticks are being used as goal posts.
The academy’s dream is to buy a piece of land for their own football pitch, storage cabin for goals and kit and an office, but that would be a large scale funding campaign and exceeds our fundraising network and skills.
But we managed to collect a fair bit of money and, after our short experiences here, it was important to us that this money is spent on specific items rather than it being handed over in cash without any control over how and where it is spent. Together with two members of the academy, Amadou and Sheriff, we decided that the money is spent on three sets of different sized goals as well as sets of printed tricots.

The process of getting the goals manufactured has been lengthy, but in the end we agreed with the academy on goal sizes and with the local welder on prices and time frame. We finally got there, the goals are now made and painted and sitting in the welder’s back yard waiting for collection.

It was agreed with the local fishermen that they volunteer to provide the nets, but that may take another little while…

Jordan, the Dutch guy who lives in Kartong, found a Dutch sports equipment supplier who are printing and sending 54 sets of tricots for a very good price.

This Sunday morning, the goals were collected by some of the young players, carried to the pitch and formally inaugurated by Amadou:

The kids are so happy about their proper goals! Thank you to everyone who contributed!