Developing Vulnerable Kids Thru Sport South Africa

With the School of Excellence programmes in our organisation, we are involved with the beneficiaries for a minimum of seven years. Our first contact with the children is when they are in primary school, aged between 10-12 years. From this very first contact, we are in constant need of support to provide measures and tools of developing the child. This covers extra academic support, sports coaching, life skills and personal mentoring.

GlobalGiving donors have been a part of our journey for the last 9 years. We truly appreciate the continued support that goes a long way in many children’s lives. We’d like to share a story of one of the children we met seven years ago so you can have insight into how far donations go.

Kay stood out not only for her potential on the hockey field, but she had the sweetest personality in her group! Her willingness to help the sport coaches and her excitement on coaching days blew away all the volunteer coaches and she was recommended for our Junior School of Excellence (JSE) the following year, 2012. As part of the selection process, more information had to be gathered about her from her school teachers, and as we expected, she was found to be definitely the sweetheart she came across and the bonus was the strength of her academic performance. With a good balance between her grades and sport skills, she was no doubt the type of child we needed to take part in the Junior School of Excellence to develop the potential she had. 

During her year in the JSE, Kay continued to show dedication and commitment to United Through Sport and kept up her academics. She was also always willing to help her peers in any way possible, but she was quite shy and reserved. The UTS coordinators of the JSE programme get more insight into the lives of the children as the year goes on. As much as she was shining in school and in sport, Kay was actually struggling at home as her parents were going through a messy divorce. She was in a very unstable home situation and living arrangement, which had a negative impact on her hopes for the future. However, towards the end of the year, Kay’s social skills were improving a lot and being in the programme increased her confidence. Because of her outstanding abilities and the difficult home situation, Kay was one of the children selected to go on scholarship in the Senior School of Excellence (SSE) programme the following year and she was thrilled at the news!

Getting a sports scholarship to the school of her dreams was the best thing to happen to the 13 year old. To fully support her children, Kay’s mom had to make many more sacrifices and we applaud her for that! In the first few years in the new school and finally adjusting to a new single parent home environment, Kay’s sport ability developed further. She represented her school and the province a number of times, which led to her being selected for South Africa Schools Hockey, where she currently still competes. Due to her personality, resilience, hunger for success, social skills and the general manner in how she represents United Through Sport, Kay was selected to be in the group that went on tour for street football to Brazil in 2014. Her natural sport talent stood out in the tournament and she was very popular amongst her international peers during the short stay in Brazil. At this stage, Kay was completely feeling on top of the world and was very hopeful for her life.

Fast forward to 2017, Kay is in her final year of high school, UTS is assisting her in applying for sports bursaries in order to pursue her hockey to a professional level and she has been accepted at a few universities already. She forever shows gratitude to the United Through Sport family for pretty much just generally being the light in her life.

“UTS has developed me so much in many different avenues and not only sport! I know how shy I used to be when I started in the programme, but today I am a prefect, a leader in my school with so many friends and I will go to University soon! When I work, I will assist UTS to help more kids.”

Global Giving is a reliable platform for UTS to raise funds to realise dreams of many more others, and we cannot do it without our dedicated donors. Thank you and please continue supporting us!