Kia Street Soccer 2011 launched

The teams will also get to meet their favourite South African football players throughout the three-month tournament as they participate and assist with the programme.

Conceptualised and co-ordinated by the youth sports development agency based in Cape Town, Sporting Chance, the Kia Street Soccer programme, supported by FIFA and SAFA, teaches life skills through the game of football, to kids who need it most, where they need it most. Their communities in the 30 regions are rife with poverty and crime, lacking in adequate facilities or stimulating after-school and weekend activities, making activities such as football in Soweto, and the like, highly beneficial to the communities it naturally thrives in.

The street a perfect venue

"The street is the perfect venue for kids to come together and do something positive and healthy," said Brad Bing, MD of Sporting Chance. "Many of them have no place to go where they can socialise in a safe and healthy environment. Why not turn the streets we have for too long perceived as being dangerous, into a stage where life lessons can be taught, friendships forged and communities entertained?"

Kia Street Soccer games will hit neighbourhood streets with round robin matches in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Durban. Twenty teams of six players each are entered into each regional league. Round robin matches will be played for eight weeks, with weekly sessions of four matches, followed by a week of regional finals and, ultimately, the Provincial Festival Finale, which takes place towards the end of June.

Being healthy and keeping active not taught in school

Being healthy and keeping active are additional critical life skills taught by the programme and felt to be necessary due to the current absence of these subjects in the national schools' curriculum. For the first phase of the programme, a Health Education Road Show visited all the participating communities leading up to the second phase - the start of the league. In addition to activities designed to show and share the importance of physical activity, nutrition, personal hygiene and TB awareness, the sessions also covered key issues of sports etiquette, conflict resolution, and environmental awareness, encouraging learners to take pride in their environment and recycle, not litter.

"It isn't only the kids who will benefit from this programme," said Bing. "Local coaches and co-ordinators will be selected from each community and will receive training in coaching and crucial life skills. In addition, a team of 800 are employed on a contractual basis throughout the duration of the Kia Street Soccer programme. A national project of this scale requires a solid team on the ground to run and implement it and we're extremely grateful to be in the position where we can create employment opportunities for so many members of the communities where the programme takes place."

It must leave a lasting legacy

"The 2010 FIFA World Cup must be more than a pleasant memory for South Africans," said Kia Motors South Africa CEO Ray Levin. "It must leave a lasting legacy of promise, showing all South Africans that dreams can come true, even for the most humble. This is the time to grab the excitement generated by Bafana Bafana and carry it through to grass-roots level. Although these events aren't on the level of FIFA's, street football certainly has a community appeal as large as its benefits."

For more information, contact Natalie Pollock at Cape Town's Sporting Chance on +27 (0)21 683 7299, log on to www.sportingchance.co.za, or join facebook.com/sportingchance for regular updates.