TO fulfil another big step towards its commitment to building 20 Football for Hope centres across Africa, FIFA’s Football for Hope centre in Kimisagara was officially opened on Tuesday.The centre was opened by the Minister of Sports and Culture, Protais Mitali, who was flanked by FIFA Corporate Social Responsibility Programme Manager Cornelia Genoni. Genoni said, “The 2010 World Cup may long be over but its legacy keeps on growing. Hosting the first World Cup in Africa was far more than just hosting a football tournament.”“FIFA made a commitment that would leave a tangible social legacy for the whole of Africa, not only the host nation. With the opening of this centre, it marks another step to fulfilling FIFA’s promise of putting football to work for promotion of youth and social projects,” said Genoni.Genoni further added that each centre has the same concept of using football to promote hope and opportunity for the young generation.Kimisagara Football for Hope Centre is the seventh of the 20 planned projects and continues the legacy of the official campaign of the 2010 FIFA World Cup – ‘20 Centres for 2010’.The centre is run by Esperance – Association des Jeunes Sportifs de Kigali (Association of Sporting Youth in Kigali), whose primary objective is to support young people through counselling and training to overcome ethnic divides and become peace advocates in the community.The Esperance centre offers opportunities for between 150-200 children in the suburban district to take part in programmes and courses participate in theatre and, importantly, play football.The club has a team in Rwanda’s second division and APR’s Jean Claude Iranzi and SC Kiyovu’s Mwemere Girinshuti are products of this centre.The Kigali centre follows the opening of similar projects in Khayelitsha (Cape Town, South Africa), Katatura (Windhoek, Namibia), Mathare (Nairobi, Kenya), Baguineda (Bamako, Mali), Maseru (Lesotho) and Cape Coast in Ghana.A further 13 Football for Hope Centres will be completed by the middle of next year in Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
