NPO ON MISSION TO TAKE SA KIDS TO SPAIN

A non-profit organisation, together with Hout Bay Leopards in the Western Cape as well as several volunteers throughout the Hout Bay area, is delivering education to underprivileged kids while teaching them love for football.

Carlos Andres and Ignacio Alonso run an NPO called Meraki Bay and are originally from Spain, having recently travelled to Mzansi in search of a new project involving the empowerment of women as well as kids’ education and their love for football.

“I’m from Spain. We run an NPO called Meraki Bay. We arrived in Hout Bay one-and-a-half years ago, looking for a project and a community, and we met Ricardo – he was running a program there called Hout Bay Leopards. It is a soccer school,” Andres told Soccer Laduma.

He added, “When we arrived in Hout Bay, we started the project in June of last year and we met Ricardo, who told us about the situation. We started different projects in the community – one on empowerment of the women and another on entrepreneurship and another with the kids.”

“I am from Valencia, so I called the Valencia football team and the foundation, so they brought us all the material, the kit and equipment for two years. So, what we are trying to do as part of the NPO project is to get them sponsors to grow the club,” said Andres.

“One of our ideas is to bring the coaches and maybe five to 10 kids to Valencia CF this summer because they do all the soccer things in Spain, like a summer camp – I was in one of them when I was a kid. They go there and spend time with the team, the coaches and equipment, so it will be nice to try and get a sponsor to get the kids and the coaches to Valencia CF,” he concluded.