Columnists
Karimojong Street Kids for Soccer Training
From The Outside Looking
If you are a keen observer, and you are passing Kitgum House, going towards Jinja Road, most often, you will see young boys playing crude soccer in the space of the Centenary Gardens by the Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA) toilets.
They are around 12 years old or so. These are the Karimojong street boys, most likely taking a rest from earning a living, unilaterally cleaning the screens of the motorists along the road, or begging doggedly, following any passer-by. And they are very tireless in what they are doing. It is not likely that KCCA personnel have noticed them, or, if they have, they do not give a damn!
Two reasons KCCA should give attention. The boys have decided to go off the streets and have saved KCCA from the nuisance they cause to the travellers. KCCA should want the travellers to go around in peace without the distractions and impediments to the streets. And it may not even be useful to relocate them wherever, because they would probably escape.
But secondly, if KCCA paid greater interest, these boys form a boon for them to undertake a more serious interest in soccer; and they are not a bane.
Remember that, maybe all the soccer clubs in Europe and elsewhere have their soccer academies where they tutor their future legends from a very young age. Mention most of the soccer stars in the English Premier League (EPL), and the likelihood is that they are graduates from their individual academies. During the busy season of the EPL, many Ugandans avidly follow their playing. Here, people have tied themselves to clubs like Liverpool, Manchester United (ManU) or Arsenal. Ask them what the word Arsenal means, and they do not even know.
KCCA has a soccer club, but I have yet to be told that they have a soccer academy. Even the other clubs in the Uganda Premier League (UPL) do not seem to have them. Yet, here are the Karimojong kids eager to be involved in such academies for training, without much ado!
There used to be a training ground for young boys by the Agha Khan Secondary School in Old Kampala. It is a wonder that they are still practising the same. But it is a pointer to it that there used to be such an interest in soccer. Now, if one wanted to get stars, maybe, even being “bought” by clubs in Europe, would not this be the time to start tutoring such kids? And in the next 8 to ten years, Ugandan soccer stars hailing from Karamoja would be giving the country a name internationally.
As it is now, KCCA is merely interested in rounding up these street kids and either taking them to Kampiringisa children’s home or back to Karamoja. In all likelihood, these kids escape back to beg on Kampala streets, or get engaged in nefarious activities in several towns, where they end up begging on the streets.
It is doubtful that these measures of training the children in such useful gambits have been tried before, because, if they had been done, we would now have heard and known their consequences. Instead, we are seeing ragamuffins in the streets, giving the city and the country a bad image. Yet, with minimum resources and an interest in securing the future of these children, Uganda would have earned a good name.
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