Developing Vulnerable Kids Thru Sport South Africa

The highly anticipated Siyaphakama Multi-sport Tournament returned on 23rdAugust 2025, bringing together more than 280 boys and girls in sports teams from eight different primary schools in the Zwide community. A collaborative initiative between the Kolisi Foundation Aware.org and United Through Sport the tournament not only ignited the spirit of competition but also addressed critical issues affecting today’s youth.

For the first time, the Siyaphakama Tournament, supported by Aware.org, introduced life skills education as a central theme, with a special focus on underage drinking and alcohol abuse. To encourage positive behavior and responsible decision-making, the tournament integrated #NoToU18 educational activities, where teams earned points by participating in interactive games that highlight the dangers of underage drinking. This innovative approach has been shown to be more effective in helping young participants retain key messages compared to traditional classroom-based learning.

“We are proud to support the Siyaphakama Multi-sport tournament, a platform that not only promotes physical fitness but also nurtures the emotional and academic growth of children,” said Mokebe Thulo, Head of Brand at Aware.org. “By incorporating life skills education into the tournament, we are taking significant strides towards empowering our youth to make informed and responsible decisions about alcohol consumption. This initiative aligns perfectly with our mission to create a safer and healthier society.”

In addition to the educational focus, the tournament also aims to address food insecurity, another pressing issue in the community. All participating children received a full meal, ensuring they were well-nourished and able to perform at their best. As well as a food pack to take home with them courtesy of fellow sponsors Cerebos.

The event culminated in the awarding of trophies, medals, and prizes to top-performing teams and standout participants, celebrating their achievements on and off the field.

Echoing this sentiment, Nick Mould - Director of United Through Sports, stated, “In partnership with Aware.org and the Kolisi Foundation, we are tackling critical issues like underage drinking and alcohol abuse head-on, through interactive games and educational activities that will inspire and educate our young participants”.

This year’s tournament will leave a lasting impact on the youth and has set a powerful example for future initiatives.

The United Through Sport 2023 Annual Report is now available and it makes for really encouraging reading. The organisation demonstrated a real bounce back in program support and numbers reached with programming since the challenges of Covid. This level of support is deeply required as we are finding lasting impacts from the Covid-19 lockdown in the development (or lack there-of), in many of our beneficiaries and so now more than ever our programs are massively important.

In 2023 we reached 2838 children with our Early Inspiration Program – providing and introduction to physical education to help boost the physical and mental health and cognitive function of our early years participants aged 5 to 9 years old. As part of this we worked with 809 of these participants with literacy support to help those struggling the most learn to read and write to help set them up for future success and drastically increase their chance of remaining in formal education.

We worked with 8807 children in our Keep Active Program, delivering continued sports coaching and physical education along with key life skills and critical issues education to help our participants to develop the skills needed to navigate the challenging circumstances they grow up in. We saw a 90% improvement in participants mental health, 87% improvement in physical health and 86% improvement in knowledge of critical issues like sexual health, gender, alternatives to violence and substance abuse.

We also worked with 115 adolescent participants in our Girls and Boys Unite program where we work with each demographic separately to help them develop confidence, leadership and key skills in a safe, secure environment surrounded by positive adult role models. In this programme we identified improvements in confidence, resilience and leadership in 100% of participants, which is hugely encouraging for their future success.

93 participants aged 14 to 19 continued on our Pathway to Success in our Future Generations program supported with full bursaries to top level high schools where they receive excellent levels of academic education and sports coaching, drastically increasing their chances of progressing on to higher education.

Finally in our Youth Rising Program we continued to support 236 participants between the age of 18 and 35 to increase their chances of employability by supporting them with higher education, practical job skills training and internships and entrepreneurial support. This program continues to flourish with 86% of participants gaining employment after completing the program.

“We’d like to say a massive thank you to all our supporters and donors who have helped us over the past 12 months. The communities where we work have really been ravaged by the impact of Covid. However with the kindness of so many generous supporters we feel we were able to provide a really important service to so many and do our part to help our beneficiaries come through this challenging time”. – Qondakele Sompondo – CEO, United Through Sport

• Annual Report (PDF)