Soccer + Life Skills for 1,000+ Youth in Cameroon

A lot has been happening since the last update for our project here at CameroonFDP!

Most recently we held the Kumba Youth League Championship on Saturday, May 28th. The epic event, which celebrated gender equity, brought together stakeholders from across the community. The championship put U-14 boys from two teams, Legend FC and Wumjeck FC, to the test to see who could not only win the game, but more importantly, demonstrate all they had learned over the last season about respecting girls and treating them as equals. These were just some of the highlights related to the curriculum about gender equity that was inerwoven into the soccer competitions throughout the season. The lessons the boys learned before the final championship game were shared with the spectators crowded around the sidelines to watch, through the motivational statements read aloud by coaches and players alike. Legend FC came out victorious in the end with the final score being 1-0. We look forward to the next tournament!

Coach Kingsley, of Legend FC, expressed his sheer joy and elation when reflecting on the final win of the season, noting that it was the icing on the cake, but he is most impressed with the improved behavior and attitudes of his players both on and off the field.

This month we are busy preparing for the arrival of trainers from Coaches Across Continents who will run a week long clinic for about 50 coaches in Kumba. Our management team is recruiting young leaders to join in our efforts to impact lives through soccer!

We thank you for your continued support as we work to empower and educate youth in Cameroon life skills, leadership, health, and gender equity and provide quality soccer programs to improve the quality of life in communities where we work. For the last 6 years, we have tested different approaches in sport for development and peace and engaged more than 100 coaches. As a result of this, we have become local experts in the SDP field and developed a uniqu and innovative model that can reach youth all across Cameroon and beyond. Stay connected with us as we strive toward the next level!

Links:

• CameroonFDP Website

After several weeks of preparation, CameroonFDP youth soccer leagues kicked off last month with great excitement in Kumba and Mamfe. Two members of our staff, Wallace and Caroline, recently completed an online training course from partners, Coaches Across Continents, and were eager to share their knowledge with coaches from the two communities. Clinics in both sites in January and February allowed our team to provide our local coach-mentors with fun soccer games and educational discussion topics on the theme for the 2016 spring season: gender equity.

Along with kick off of the league comes the youth leadership initiative, which provides the opportunity for Kumba youth to participate in leadership training and take an active role in developing their neighborhood. One team already got the season off to a great start with a community service project at Ma Azi orphanage. Players from Legend FC, under the leadership of their brilliant coach Kingsley, joined youth in the orphanage for a clean up of the compound. After encouraging their peers to become leaders, despite their current conditions, they shared a meal together to signify their unity and common goal to grow and develop as the future of Cameroon.

Thanks to your support, we are able to continue to provide coaches clinics and trainings as part of our unique model that creates youth soccer leagues for community development. Since we started this approach 2 years ago, the local response has been overwhelmingly positive! We look forward to continuing to grow this model, engaging more players, coaches, and teams this year. Please stay connected to see what we can achieve together!

Links:

• UN Int'l Day of Sport for Development and Peace is Apr 6th!
• Check out week 3 of the action from Mamfe!
• Sheer joy in all youth as Kumba league kicks off!

Time flies when you are having fun! I can’t believe it has been 4 months since the Super Cup.What began with a weekend of soccer in August has turned into a movement in Cameroon, impacting youth and communities far beyond our initial expectation. Thank you so much for your generous support! It seems like only yesterday that we gathered 50+ young players and coaches from across the Southwest and Northwest Regions of Cameron in the regional capital city of Bamenda for a thrilling soccer competition and leadership workshop. Since then, a lot has happened.

While we were gearing up for back-to-school and fall soccer seasons here in the U.S., our Super Cup players were activating their teammates to create positive change back home. Players, coaches and teams from Kumba, Mamfe, Bamenda, Ndu, and Ndom organized community service activities ranging from soccer matches for local orphans to neighborhood cleanup projects and even road repairs. 

“The theme of teamwork and community service inspired me at the Super Cup in Bamenda. My team and I will clean our environment, especially the football field, and organize friendly matches with young people in the local orphanage.”

-          Babila, Age 13

With some teams engaged in monthly service projects, we are optimistic this momentum will continue in 2016.

With the New Year in mind, I am excited to share more good news with you. For a second year in a row, FIFA Football for Hope will support our innovative educational soccer leagues in Cameroon in 2016-2017 with a grant in the amount of $60,000! While we look forward to making an announcement to the general public very soon, I wanted to make sure you were among the first to know. This will help propel us forward with another exciting year of innovative sport-based programs and community development initiatives.

From all of us on the CameroonFDP team, thank you and best wishes for a joyous holiday season!

Sincere regards,

Justin

The first group of players and coaches arrived in the parking lot at the Blue Pearl Hotel at Mile 4 - Nkwen on the morning of Thursday, August 6th. The coach and team, which consisted of five  players selected to represent their club, Brescia F.C. and the whole city of Kumba, made the journey via public transportation without any troubles, aside from a bumpy ride and police control points which forced occupants off the bus for identification checks. “Bamenda by Night”, as the locals call it, is an overnight bus ride taking more than 10 hours to travel 400 kilometers on both paved and unpaved roads through the Cameroonian jungle of the Southwest and into the grasslands of the Northwest Region. The weary travelers had only enough energy for a breakfast of tea and bread before they retired to their hotel rooms for some rest. They had finally arrived in Bamenda, the host city of the 2015 Super Cup to Develop Young Leaders.

The morning of Friday, August 7th began bright and early with the crow of the rooster and the rising sun. After a light breakfast, everyone headed to the field. Co-founders Peter Ngwane [Cameroon] and Justin Forzano [Pittsburgh] were on site to give a great welcome and words of encouragement to all of the participants, who were reminded that this event was a great achievement and represented the next level of sport for development in Cameroon.

With the group stage came a downpour of rain. Despite the muddy playing grounds, four teams emerged to enter the semi finals and finally the two clubs involved with CameroonFDP the longest, Brescia F.C. (Kumba) and Shalom Future Stars Academy, emerged victorious to meet in the finals.

Both teams stood in line in front of the honorable delegation from the Northwest Region who gathered under the canopy to watch the final match. This was their opportunity to showcase what they had learned from their coaches earlier about the theme of the Super Cup. Spectators listened as players read ‘motivational statements’ about the importance of being a good role model; how community service can improve a neighborhood; and how as footballers specially selected to participate in this event, they are leaders. Many in the audience listened and reflected on the meaning of the Super Cup. It was clear to all that this was about more than the game.

Want to find out who won the cup and what happens next? Check out the full story on our website. 

Links:

• Full Story

The last time we you received an update on our activities in Cameroon, we gave a preview of the season with a summary of the opening day ceremony which saw the first-ever full season of a youth soccer league in Kumba kick off. I'm excited to reconnect now and let you know that this season to date has been a great success and our local management team is busy planning for the final match coming up this weekend to see who will emerge victorious and go down in history as the first-ever Kumba Youth League winner. 

Brescia F.C. takes to the field against Arsenal F.C., a rivalry that will go down in the books for several reasons, one of which is too obvious: their most outstanding leadership. Both of the coaches, Modest (Brescia) and Besem (Arsenal) have grown so much over the last few years as coach- mentors in our programs. They are some of the most respectable and knowledgeable coaches in Kumba due to their open-mindedness and their interest in personal and professional development. This was not the case when we met them a few years ago: both were stubborn, lacked communication skills, and were sometimes outright hostile. They easily got frustrated when things did not go as planned and often shouted negative thing at their players - which is often the case in Cameroon. 

Now, Besem and Modest are mild-mannered, respectful, and view their coaching responsibilities in a different light. They see their players as more than just forwards or defenders, but as children, students, and young citizens. Their approach to coaching has changed. And because of this, the experience for all of their players has also changed. 

It should come as no surprise that these two teams have qualified for the final match. Quality performance and effective leadership off the field - in training and in every day life - can lead to quality performance on the field. And that is what CFDP is all about: using the game of soccer to improve the lives of hundreds of youth (and their coaches) in Cameroon. 

Thanks for supporting our project. We hope you will continue to be inspired by the work we do and continue to stay involved.  

Cheers!

-Justin