For Mathare United, football is all about camaraderie. There is, of course, the aspect of remaining competitive and retaining the status of a top-flight club in the country but that feeling can hardly override the spirit of sportsmanship.
With their motto of ‘giving youth a sporting chance on and off the field’, Mathare Youth Sports Association provides youth with a glorious opportunity to evaluate and nurture their social and leadership skills.
And true to its philosophy, MYSA has surmounted colossal financial challenges to attain its coveted current status.
However, it has not been a walk in the park as testified by director Bob Munro: ″When MYSA started in 1987, no United Nations or bilateral aid agencies or national governments gave any priority to sport as a serious development activity. At that time, I worked as a senior policy adviser on environment and sustainable development for many of those agencies and repeatedly tried to do some insider trading on behalf of the Mathare youth."
"But when I tried to persuade them to take sport for development seriously, the response I usually got was a polite smile followed by a quick shift to a more serious subject. So I stopped trying and, with the talented and determined youth in the Mathare slums, we re-focused instead on showing them how sport can contribute to sustainable development."
Undaunted, Munro pushed forward with his sight firmly trained on the organisation's ultimate objective.
"In retrospect, their refusal to acknowledge sport as a legitimate development activity was a blessing as MYSA was left alone to evolve solely in response to the needs of its members and the community," added Munro.
At a meeting in January 1988, the MYSA Executive Council arrived at the decision to roll out the under-12-year-old competition. It was to be a small-sided (seven-a-side) competition with smaller balls and smaller goalposts.
The Council approached a local metal-working shop and specified that the new goalposts be constructed using three-inch diameter pipes.
"Having agreed on the size of the new goals, the meeting was about to move to the next agenda item when one young member interjected that “we must make sure holes are drilled every two-feet through the pipes for the new goalposts," he added.
The statement sent Munro scratching his head and he sought to know more.
"By such a strange proposal, I asked why he wanted to weaken the goalposts by drilling holes through them. If we don’t put holes in them” the youth politely replied, “then some people will steal our goalposts to use them as water pipes,” said Munro.
"Those goalposts, with the holes drilled through them, were never stolen and lasted for many years. Every time I saw those goalposts it reminded me of the crucial difference between development projects being implemented with and by the community rather than for the community."
"Without donor funding, MYSA’s first decade was a constant struggle for survival, especially as MYSA never said “No” when a dozen barefoot kids in torn T-shirts and shorts showed up and said they were a football team who wanted to join MYSA."
Despite MYSA’s lean budget, the organisation's membership suddenly increased six-fold and then doubled again over the next few years.
The MYSA alumni which has now stretched beyond 125,000, comprises various professionals including doctors, lawyers, marketing executives, bank managers, IT experts, teachers and a host of other high achievers.
Through sheer hard work and focus, they all managed to disentangle their dependents from the jaws of poverty. Munro explains the reason behind such a windfall.
"A major reason for MYSA’s success is the fact that it is owned and run by the youth themselves. The more than 200 elected youth leaders, coaches and volunteers are on average only 16 years old and half of the elected leaders are girls," he observed.
"MYSA had to be organised by young volunteers. In the Mathare slums, there were few fathers with the time or inclination to organise sports leagues for the youth. The mothers, often single mothers, abandoned by one or a series of husbands, were already overworked and overburdened by trying to earn enough for their families to survive. MYSA would only survive if organised by the youth themselves."
Interestingly, with a dearth of funds to rope in a salaried staff, the fledgling MYSA leaders and organisers provided services on a voluntary basis.
The tradition has been passed down to successive generations. Today, MYSA has over 60 full-time staff members.
To ensure smooth operations, MYSA adopted a simple democratic structure where the volunteers formulated policies which guided their own work.
The organisation has adopted a bottom-up approach in governance and decision-making. Each year, members in each zone meet to elect their own zonal executive committees, with each of the chairmen being absorbed into the overall MYSA Sports Council.
"Each zonal committee also appoints two members to the overall MYSA Community Service Council. Both the Sports and the Community Service Councils then elect four and five members respectively to the top policy-making body, the MYSA Executive Council," Munro revealed.
The elected MYSA leaders and hundreds of volunteer organisers, coaches and referees are still on average only 15-16 years old. MYSA teams are coached and refereed by the youth themselves.
"In keeping with the basic MYSA principle that if you get something from MYSA then you should put something back into MYSA, the players in the U-18 leagues coached and refereed in the U-16 leagues where the players also coached and refereed in the U-14 leagues who in turn."
"MYSA initially organised basic coach and referee training clinics. However, in the late 1990s MYSA partnered with the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) Academy to conduct more advanced certificate courses," says Munro.
Five MYSA coaches have already earned UEFA B Coaching Licenses. Today, KNVB/MYSA trained coaches and referees feature prominently in the Kenyan Premier and Nationwide Leagues. One of them, Maqulate Atieno, was even recently appointed an internationalMatch Commissioner by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
Over the last few years, KNVB/MYSA-trained instructors have been resourceful in Botswana, Cape Verde, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, southern Sudan, Vietnam and Zambia where they conducted coaching and refereeing courses.
In line with the tenets of corporate social responsibility, MYSA incorporated clearing garbage alongside playing football in tandem with the principle “if you get something from the community, then you should put something back”.
"On the weekends, teams which won their matches got three points while those teams which completed their garbage cleanup projects got six points," added Munro.
Indeed, associating sport with community service produced tangible fruits given the organisation allured more donors who exhibited a willingness to pump funds into garbage cleanups. One such donor happened to be the Norwegian Ministry of Environment, who donated rakes, shovels and wheelbarrows.
They also paid the airfares for the first MYSA teams that flew the country's flag in the Norway Cups between 1990 and 1992. Through the tournament, MYSA has nurtured a pool of great footballers, who include former Harambee Stars and AJ Auxerre's great Dennis Oliech.
MYSA's curve continued to experience a steady rise. At the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, a MYSA representative was presented with the UNEP Global 500 Award for environmental innovation and achievement.
Today, over 30,000 boys and girls participate annually in the MYSA self-help youth sports and community service programmes. In addition to helping themselves, the Mathare youth have also helped over 10,000 youth in similar projects both locally and abroad.
"The MYSA youth also became peacemakers outside and later in the Mathare slums. In 1999 inter-ethnic violence escalated among the over 70,000 refugees in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in north-west Kenya. As two-thirds of the refugees were youth, the UNHCR asked MYSA to start a similar programme," said Munro.
MYSA capped off its stellar performance as a sports organisation by producing a football team that has caused ripples in the local football arena.
Formed by players drawn from the youth structures, Mathare United sprung to prominence when they stunned Eldoret KCC to win the 1998 Moi Golden Cup. They in 2000 they bagged the Moi Golden Cup again.They finished second in the Kenyan Premier League in 2001, emerged third in 2002 but slid down to eighth in 2005-2006 season.
Their impressive record notwithstanding, Mathare United appear to be experiencing mixed fortunes in the top tier this season, a fact Munro attributes to a dearth of shirt sponsorship.
"The morale at the camp has been low given the boys had to endure some rainy months without a salary. This explains why our women's team have been performing dismally. Our best players have joined clubs that can offer them salaries, leaving behind a weak squad," said Munro.
Munro believes the rainy days will soon be over.
