Football without Borders steps up their fitness
Zandspruit children experience a new level of sports training thanks to local fitness centres.
Football without Borders has teamed up with local fitness centres to teach their children more about fitness.
Founder of Football without Borders, Michael Mapfunde, made arrangements with Eleven Eleven Fitness and the Honeydew Fight Club for their children to go to the centres every Thursday for fitness training. The first training session on 6 July saw the soccer children learning fitness work with ladders and cardio exercises, while the children who box went through some fitness drills and got the opportunity to throw a few punches at a boxing bag.
One of the coaches at Eleven Eleven Fitness, Mark Neil, said, “Since we are a fairly new gym, we do not have enough capital to help Football without Borders financially, so we agreed to train the children for an hour on Thursdays.” Neil explained that the training will give the children the opportunity to learn the basics of sport, such as strength and mechanics, so they are able to participate in any sport.
The centre’s neighbours, the Honeydew Fight Club, will lend their facilities to the children who box. Trainer for the club, Darren Norton, was very enthusiastic about having the children spend time practising their punches and fitness in the club on 6 July.
“It is a great opportunity for us to teach children who actually want to learn to box and inspire them to not just be a product of their surroundings in Zandspruit,” Norton added.
Mapfunde said the number of hours the respective coaches will put into training the children and letting them use their facilities, equals a huge financial contribution.
Soccer coach, Elia K Dzwowa, added that he never would have imagined the organisation would have such an opportunity and was very happy for the children.
Football without Borders is an organisation which uses sport, particularly soccer and boxing, to teach life skills and inspire children in Zandspruit.
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