Life Tree Community Project gets a soccer field for Kya Sands children

JOBURG NORTH – A safe place for children to play the sport they love

The children cheer when they hear a new soccer field will be made for them at Tree Life Project thanks to World Sports Betting.

World Sports Betting has come on board to sponsor the Life Tree Community Project with a soccer field for the community’s benefit.

Tractors are already on site in Kya Sand to clear out land that will be converted to the soccer field and will be completed by July this year.

Ryno du Plessis, Christopher Thompson, Monwabisi Jini, Carla Kamp and Mark Evetts.

Life Tree Community Project has been working in the Kya Sand community for 20 years and currently run various programmes which include educating underprivileged children from the informal settlement under the Life Tree Academy banner.

With the help of Fourways Main Reef Rotary Club, the Kya Sand project will enable children to have a safe place where they can be children and have fun along with their peers.

Carla Kamp has followed in her family’s footsteps and now runs the project to continue their efforts to assist the community.

“We started here because there was a need. The holiday club started with a small youth church which then grew bigger until we outgrew the clubhouse, ” said Kamp.

“We saw this piece of property and our founder, Dr Belinda Kamp, wanted to start with five projects and one of them was sports development. But it was only recently that our sports programme started to take off when we found a wonderful coach Monwabisi Jini to assist.”

Carla Kamp strolls across the field that will be a soccer pitch.

Now Life Tree Community Project is one step closer to realising their vision of having a soccer field where children from the community can play soccer and other sports activities in a safe environment.

Kamp added, “Sport is an essential tool for social development. Sports development keeps them busy and their idle time is used playing soccer, finding encouragement and motivation as well as people to support them.

“Instead of standing and wagging your finger at a teenager and preaching to them, we are saying come and play soccer and they do something constructive. It is a positive way towards social upliftment.”

Carla Kamp, Ryno du Plessis and Christopher Thompson surprised the children with a new soccer field. 

World Sports Betting’s marketing manager Ryno du Plessis was pleased to see the children happy and enthusiastic about the soccer field when it was announced to them. He was introduced to the project by the Fourways Main Reef Rotary Club.

“It makes me feel wonderful and that is why we get involved with these kinds of projects, it’s what they call an emotional dividend,” said du Plessis.

“We have been looking for a largescale cause, although we do support a few small clubs and homes in the community. But this is our first big undertaking in Gauteng and we have to thank the Rotary Club for bringing it to our attention.

“We are a sports company and sport is in our culture and giving the children the opportunity to play on a proper field for the first time [is great]. I have heard stories of children going all the way to Zandspruit just to play soccer.”

The children of Life Tree Community Project in Kya Sands play soccer under the tutelage of coach Jini, a licensed coach who has a passion for the game and a love for his community to make a difference.

He is very excited that his teams will now have a safe place they can train and play. His teams have already been successful, leading the Mogale City’s soccer league and will now be able to play home matches in better facilities.

“It is all about their development and learning leadership skills. At the moment we have U11, U13, U15, U17, U23 and the girls’ team plays in the Open League,” said Jini.

“‘Having a new field will help because one of our challenges in our community is a problem of alcohol abuse.

So removing the children, even for a few hours, away from those kinds of influences will help a lot. It will be good to see the children come here and enjoying themselves but with the responsibility of taking care of it.”

Monwabisi Jini plays soccer with some of the children at break time.

Although the building and maintenance will be covered by World Sports Betting, the Life Tree Community Project still appeals to companies to sponsor a fence around the field so the children can be safe and secure as they play.