Soccer ball makes children in South Africa happy!!

Hello, this is Atsushi.

Watching two quarterfinals at the stadium, I am gradually getting over the fact that Japan has lost the game. 

Thank you for a lot of encouragement. 

Although the Japanese national team won’t play anymore, the World Cup is still going on. 

So, switching our moods, we will keep writing in South Africa.

The day after the game of Japan against Paraguay, I visited a primary school in a township, the Diepsloot region in the suburbs of Johannesburg. 

Township is a district where black people used to live during the apartheid era.

The purpose of this visit is to give soccer balls to underprivileged children.

For those not familiar with this charity, I will explain a little more detail about what we have done so far.

With a catch-phrase “Football Unites the World”, we sell Libero original T-shirts as charity. 500 yen from every T-shirt sale goes to the charity funds to buy soccer balls for underprivileged children in Latin America and Africa. 

We’ve already given soccer balls to children in Paraguay, Algeria and Thailand. 

Due to safety issues, it is fairly difficult to find the places to do charity in South Africa. Even though Libero enjoy going to wherever we want, we are not brave enough to drop at a primary school in South Africa at random. We asked a local Japanese resident to introduce a staff member working at Education Ministry, who introduced a primary school teacher to us.

Then, it happened to be the day after the match of Japan against Paraguay. I was by no means in a mood of visiting them, but I had to go. It would be offensive to say, “Please rearrange the date because we still remain deep in the shock of the loss yesterday.

Ken stayed home because he was sick. Instead, I was accompanied by a newspaper journalist who was interested in this charity.

Since the primary school is located in a township, 

we had no choice but to pass by rough areas.  

The newspaper journalist was secretly taking pictures with great cautions, as even taking a picture out of the car window itself could be very dangerous. 

Those walking along the street were all black people. No white people or Asians were there. It’s been a long time since I felt so nervous in a car.

Anyhow, we managed to reach the primary school.

 Diepsloot West Primary School

Compared to the old houses in the neighborhood, this primary school looked really good, as may be expected of public school.

I guess they have just built the school buildings. 

They looked quite new.

School is on a winter vacation now. Children were playing football in the courtyard as a holiday program, with teachers working as referees.

You can see the houses in township all around behind the courtyard.

I greeted the teacher I had contacted before, asking him to gather children.

I brought five soccer balls I had bought at shopping center before.

I asked these children in English if they knew which country this blue uniform represented. They energetically answered all at once, “Japan!!”.

Before the start of World Cup, local people didn’t know well about Japanese national team. I was even asked by a cashier at a supermarket, “Where are you from? Japan? Well, is Japan in the World Cup?” But now, many people, seeing this blue uniform, speak to me, saying “Japan, Japan”

So, I realized again that Japanese national team had achieved a great thing. Enormous is the impact of advancing to the final 16.

I was surrounded by children eager to play football.

The newspaper journalist wanted to take a photo with me handing a soccer ball over the children.

 500 yen from each T-shirt sale has led to smile of these children.

A teacher said, “Quite a few children growing up in a poor family are led into delinquency. If they have something they can commit themselves to, such as football, they should get on the right track. Thank you for helping us to organize such environment.

Finally, we took a group photo.

I showed them the Japanese way of taking a picture: “Piece!!”

I hope one of them will become a national team member of South Africa in the future.

The article of this charity appeared on the local news section in evening edition of Nihon Keizai Shimbun on July 3rd.

The headline is “Passing soccer balls to children in South Africa. Japanese supporters keep mingling with local people”. This article was covered extensively with a picture.  Since this is the past newspaper, it may be impossible to get it in the store. But if you happen to subscribe the evening version of Nihon Keizai Shimbun, please take a look.

Anyway, as a part of this charity, Ken visited Bangkok in Thailand last May. Ken gave the collected donation to Yutaka Aihara, who is in charge of organizing soccer school for children in Bangkok. This donation was used for making training bibs. He sent us some of the pictures.

 Middle: Yutaka Aihara, who organizes soccer school in Bangkok.

 You can see the catch-phrase of this charity: “Football Unites the World”.

You can also see the letters in Japanese above the uniform number, which means “traveling all over the world with football” in Japanese.

If you agree with the idea of this charity, please purchase this T-shirt through the URL below.

About purchase of T-shirts: http://www.libero2010.net/store

If you're inconvenient with the language, please e-mail us directly.

They are worth buying as a reminder of this 2010 South Africa World Cup, as the national flags of 32 countries which joined the World Cup are printed on the front of this T-shirt.

In this journey, this is the last opportunity for us to give soccer balls to underprivileged children. However, we will have chance to travel overseas in the future, where we continue this kind of charity.

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