When former Amavubi forward Jimmy Mulisa retired from international Football a decade ago, he launched his coaching career at his former club APR FC before he was appointed as coach for the national team.

However, the veteran has always wanted to contribute to the development of homegrown football talents from a young age.

"As a former player who played professional football out of the country, I had a chance to witness how young talents are detected and nurtured in Europe and I thought I could contribute to the football game by investing in the young generation,” Mulisa told Times Sport.

"I felt it was my calling to come back to my country and share those skills with our homegrown talents and contribute to the development of their professional careers and the future of Rwandan football at large,” he added.

While plying his trade in Belgium, Mulisa used to bring some training equipment to youngsters at Esperance Football Academy which was then coached by Jean Paul Kalisa.

After Kalisa died in 2016, some young players at the academy had nobody else to look after their development.

Mulisa has since founded a football foundation dubbed ‘Umuri’ and brought in youngsters as his sponsors promised to keep giving him training equipment.

The foundation so far comprises 400 young players aged between seven and 17 years of age.

Umuri Foundation’s development initiative is already paying dividends, having produced three young players who were part of the U-17 Amavubi national team squad that participated in the 2021 CECAFA U-17.

They include Jean Paul Irakoze, Benjamin Niyokwizera and Sammy Masabo all of whom were raised at the football foundation.

Mulisa is now focused on using his connections in Europe to look for clubs in which the best players from the foundation can embark on professional careers.

Building partnerships

Mulisa dedicates Umuri Foundation’s current achievements to the commitment his partners, local and foreign, have put in supporting his initiative.

Prior to running his foundation, UEFA Foundation donated equipment to the coach worth 5000 euros to help youth teams get enough training and match equipment.

The foundation also reached an agreement with Rulindo district under which the district pledged financial support in the exercise of detecting football talents in the area as well as their development.   

As a result, Umuri now has its headquarters in Rulindo.

The coach is also putting particular effort in promoting women football from the grassroots as he bids to raise new female football talents through his foundation.

The initiative impressed Aids HealthCare Foundation (AHF Rwanda) which later committed to support the foundation’s team of 40 young girls dubbed ‘Girls Act’, which currently operates in Muyange in Kagarama Sector, Kicukiro District.

A partnership agreement signed last weekend between AHF-Rwanda and the foundation’s team states that the former will not only help the team’s young girls in preparing their future by helping them in preventing teen pregnancies and HIV AIDS which would both ruin their future.

Besides, after some of the team’s young girls dropped out of school due to different circumstances, AHF Rwanda pledged support for them so they can go back to school beginning with the coming 2021/22 academic year.

Challenges

Despite his passion for football development, Mulisa claims his current financial capacity is not enough for his initiative to reach all youngsters aspiring to become footballers in the future.

"The demand is pretty incredible but our current capacity does not allow us to reach out to them across the country because so many children across the country are interested in becoming footballers whose talent has the potential to contribute to the future national team as well as local and foreign clubs,” said Mulisa.

Umuri Foundation so far operates only in Kigali and Rulindo District, the current foundation’s headquarters, as Mulisa opens the door for more partners to support his initiative to reach more football talents in different parts of the country.

"We don’t have enough support to hone their talent and we need more stakeholders to join this initiative so we can help them build their future around football,” he added.

"You can imagine that over 500 children in each district want someone who can mentor them and show them the best football skills. We can do it but we don’t have that capacity to reach everyone across the country,” he claimed.

Should more partners and stakeholders join to support his initiative, Mulisa is confident his foundation will become a successful initiative that can benefit a big number of young players and the nation’s football in general.

"We need more support because we want to see more young talents flourishing and reach the level we weren’t able to reach,” he said.