The founders of a Heideveld organisation which started only two months ago, are particularly proud of their soccer and potjiekos teams who did well at a Heritage Day tournament.
Miranda “Randy” and Peter Felander, the founders of Step-by-Step Development, said they were invited by Gloria Veale, to take part in the Balls, not Guns tournament, which took place at Montagu’s Gift Primary School in Lotus River on Heritage Day.
Here they competed with teams from Bonteheuwel, Pelican Park, Rocklands in Mitchells Plain, Manenberg and Lotus River. The aim of the event was to provide an alternative to the social ills and violence prevalent in the communities.
“Gangs make it difficult for some children to walk in the area. Even if you are not a gangster, sometimes you are associated with a gang by a rival gang, only because of where you live. The children are often scared to walk freely. For this reason, we started arranging tournaments among the children from different streets in Heideveld. Now they know each other and don’t fear walking to other roads. We have a soccer team, pool and netball teams, as well as ballroom dancers. We work with different age groups – from the age of 6. We try to get the parents involved also. Many of our members’ parents cannot afford to have them belong to a club. We don’t charge them,” Ms Felander said.
Mr Felander works with the boys and Ms Felander works with the girls.
Ms Felander said at the tournament, her group took part in the seven-a-side soccer tournament – a total of four teams – from under seven to under 14.
“They only had one week to prepare for the tournament, and we are so proud of all of them. Three of our teams reached the finals and our under-14 team won the floating trophy. They played against nine teams. Our girls, between the ages of 6 and 11, also won the potjiekos competition,” Ms Felander said.
The group plans to host fund-raisers to help them with buying sports equipment and to fund their planned camps.