Charlie Webster Blog
The power of sport
February 19, 2011
Filed Under South Africa
I love having the opportunity to go away and see different cultures, different beliefs and thoughts about life. When I was a child I was always interested in history and in the spirit of cultures across the globe. One of my passions throughout my life from a young age has been to work with kids and show that hope and belief is all that is needed in this world irrespective of the situation and circumstances you were brought up in.
As early as 17 I was working with a play scheme whilst I was still at school studying for my A-levels. It was a scheme where I would teach sport for an hour to kids after school. The children I coached were brought up in humble and deprived back grounds in the inner city areas of Sheffield. I wanted to use sport to inspire these young people to fire up their passion, improve their confidence and determination to be whoever they want to be. Exactly what sport did for me.
That drive and passion has always been something deep inside me most likely due to my own background. I still wholeheartedly believe it takes just once person. The strength of belief is the most powerful of all.
There are some incredible initiatives across the world that use sport as a means to escape, empower and aspire. One that I have been reading about on my recent travels in South Africa is in Durban created from a children’s home called Umthombo, ‘street-kid-surfers’. Old surf boards are donated to the project with the goal to get kids of the street. At first as I’m sure you can imagine there was a backlash from local surfers, they believed these kids were dangerous, drug addicted and street thugs.
The area around Umthombo to get to the beach is in a nutshell as rough and hostile as you can possibly imagine. Creepy figures lurking to suck the kids back in.
Imagine how those kids felt, branded because they have nothing, no home, no family, how are they supposed to overcome that when they are boxed as ‘bad’?
The power of belief crops up again, they didn’t give up and now they are mixing with the local surfers, learning from them, being inspired by them and empowered to live a life of their own. Falling in love with the sport and leaving the streets behind, leaving their traumatic childhoods behind. A handful of kids from the project are now working as assistant life guards and will qualify fully soon, 2 are also in the process of opening their own surf school.
I also learnt to how surf while I was away. I didn’t want to get out of the water. (the picture is my first go at surfing!)
The power of sport, the power of one.
Climbing (actually running) Table Mountain
May 04, 2010
Filed Under South Africa
After much consideration about climbing, actually all I could think about was challenging myself and running up Table Mountain. I found myself at the foot of the sandstone range and this particular morning it only had a tiny table cloth of cloud. I was all ready to go when this mysterious guy started talking to me, he’d been up already and collected water which he said was the freshest you could get. Let’s call him the ‘spiritual guy’, so he told me that Table Mountain is where masculinity and femininity meet and to set an intention before I tackle the cliff face. I’d also heard it was the stairway to heaven, which didn’t impress me so much as I’m not quite ready to go to heaven yet!
Off I went with a good fast pace, I felt this immense energy despite the fact I had a chest infection and sounded like a heavy smoker. I walked the first half as it wasn’t that safe under foot. Then I had the urge, by this time my friends had told me to go ahead and leave them because I was annoying the pants of them with my speedy competitiveness. I broke into a run and had a very sad but great satisfaction overtaking a group of 6 guys, I really am sad!
There was definitely something very spiritual and empowering about this climb, although the last 20 minutes my legs and chest were burning. The only thing keeping me going was my pure stubbornness and the fact that there was a guy running behind me and there was NO way I was going to let him overtake me!
The view was breathtaking (3,563 ft) and you could see the doughnut of the newly-built Green Point Stadium. On a slight digression, I can’t wait for the World Cup!
I climbed back down which hurt loads actually, didn’t realise how steep it was until I was trying to run down a cliff face, not clever.
Annoyingly we took so many photos; we even had a photo of the ‘spiritual man’ playing a strange looking instrument. But my friend’s camera got stolen the next day so we lost all of them, apart from a few I took on my Blackberry…naughty stealing horrible nasty thieves! We want our photos!
I head to the townships of South Africa
April 16, 2010
Filed Under Football South Africa
In the townships of South Africa I discovered that not everyone is looking forward to joining the World Cup party.
South Africa’s preparations for the event that will put them in the global spotlight for over a month this summer were well underway when I flew out to Cape Town last month. As a football fan I can’t wait for the event, and, as us England fans say every time a major championship comes around, I really do have a good feeling about this one. Surely this really is our time…
When I touched down in the ‘Mother City’, I honestly believed that every man and his dog would be buzzing with World Cup fever, and proud to be the first African host of one of sport’s true blue ribbon events. How wrong I turned out to be… Okay, on the surface, all appears well. Zakumi mascots (the mascot with attitude, apparently…) and oversized ornamental plastic footballs line the streets, while the new Green Point Stadium, which comes complete with retractable roof, is a fine piece of architecture. I must add that every single South African I spoke to insists that Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium is better!
Anyway, I digress… As stunning a place as Cape Town is to visit – Table Mountain and Cape Point in particular are unforgettable – I wanted to get into the heart of the country and find out what ‘real’ South Africans thought about the World Cup coming to their homeland. So, when a local pal of mine offered to take me into the townships, I jumped at the chance. Even though I’d been warned that it was a path very few white people had dared to tread…I needn’t have worried, I was welcomed into the shanty towns with open arms, even though these were some of the poorest people I’d ever met – their lives bookmarked by poverty and violence.
My local friend, who is from the Zulu tribe, told me that the World Cup was never intended to benefit the townships or the poor. This made me incredibly sad and angry, because if Africa is finally being embraced into the World Cup family then surely the world should see the continent as it really is. It’s an amazing, vibrant, colourful place and should be portrayed as such.
One of the village elders told me that 2010 is just putting their country into more debt and that it’s the poor who pay while the rich grease their own palms with back-handers. I also spoke to a construction worker who was on the Green Point stadium job. Now that the building’s finished, he’s unemployed. I’d really hoped that men and women of all ages would be able to attend World Cup games, but one guy who was about my age told me that he’d have to try and watch matches on communal TV’s as no-one in these parts could afford a ticket. “It doesn’t make any difference whether the World Cup is in our country or not if we have to watch it on TV,” he said. “Why is that good for us?” South Africa’s 2010 slogan ‘Alive with Possibility’ seems to have ignored vast swathes of the population.
The young kids who don’t understand the political ramifications of what’s going on thought differently to the adults. For them, the excitement of the world’s greatest players coming to Africa was overwhelming. Although they screamed out Ronaldo’s name, it’s England – and David Beckham in particular – who they’re really looking forward to seeing. I couldn’t resist a kick around with the kids – they were among the happiest I have ever met, despite the fact that most of them live in shacks. They couldn’t believe that I – a gogo (elderly woman) – could play football!
However, the kids’ excitement was the minority feeling. I became even more confused when I was told that no money had been allocated to spend on trying to improve the national squad. Surely it’s vitally important for South Africa to have a successful team or at least get past the group stages for the first time in their history? They face Mexico, Uruguay and France in Group A; a daunting task indeed.
However, one minor consolation for us English is that every South African I spoke to said that if their country is eliminated early on, then they’ll support England! I really hope that we can give the amazing people of the townships something to celebrate…
If you are heading to South Africa this summer, then Durban is the place to go.
What most travellers possibly won’t realise is that the tournament is being played during the South African winter, when Durban will be the warmest of the venues. Cape Town will be proper cold; I have this vision of milk bottle Brits walking around in shorts, replica shirts, pulled up socks and sandals, freezing their pasty bums off!