BYC Going Beyond Boundaries: Kisaki

On the 24^th of July, Buguruni Youth Centre’s Assistant Program Manager /Training program manager Omary Mbweze and Girls Empowerment Program Manager Rehema Chuka travelled to Kisaki Village-Morogoro region by train. Kisaki is a village in Ngomero disrict, Morogoro region, approximately 4 hours from Dar es Salaam. The main socio-economic activity is agriculture including crops such as maize, watermelons, and sesame.

Rehema Chuka:Girls Empowernment Program Manager

The aim of the travel was to visit a centre in Kisaki which has youth and children that promotes Sports Activities to conduct sports training activities and HIV/AIDS messages.

Kisaki Centre has at least 60 youth and Children. The centre promotes sports training to the youth daily.

Some of the youth and children at Kisaki Centre

This centre is run by Ramadhani Mape, who started his sports career at Buguruni , Dar es Salaam before moving to Kisaki Morogoro to stay with a relative. Due to his passion for sports activities, he was selected by the Local authority to be a youth leader for Kisaki Village. Given this opportunity, he decided to promote sports in the village. Though lacking in the sports trainings was  HIV/AIDS education among the youth. He then visited Buguruni Youth Centre and learnt of their KAO activities. This prompted him to invite BYC’s leadership in order to train the young children on HIV/AIDS.


Ramadhani Mape-Kisaki leader

The training began officially on the 25^th of July in the evenings where the children were taught HIV/AIDS using the Kicking Aids Out (KAO) –Movement games. In addition they also did football exercises.



Rehema Chuka addressing the youth at the centre



On 27^th July there was a seminar for the children where the children were taught the 17 rules of soccer. In addition Rehema Chuka  a Leader  Level 2 (LL2) taught the youth on HIV/AIDS: What is HIV/AIDS, how it is transmitted. Almost all of these kids were unaware of this important topic.



Omary Mbweze, BYC's Ass. Prog Manager



It was clear that the kids lacked HIV/AIDS education and this was good oppotunity for them to learn. In addition to the challenges, there was limited sports equipment such as jerseys, footballs, shoes, that prevented the kids from taking part in sports activities. Girls in particular did not have any training sports wear and some came with Khangas. Tradition was also another factor that prevents the girls from taking part in sports since thus they do not feel confident to put on sports shorts, but this perception changed when they saw Rehema Chuka-BYC's girls' empowerment leader wearing shorts and they decided that they will not be intimidated and wear comfortable clothes for taking part in sports.

Girls at Kisaki Centre

Saturday was a farewell day where the BYC team and the kids plus their parents came to hear the final words. It was such a sad time for the children and it was clear that they wanted to continue with the trainings that were taking place. On Sunday before the BYC team left for Dar es Salaam in the evening, the Under 17 team from Kisaki Centre played a match with Muungano team from the next village. When leaving the Secretary of the local village requested for BYC's contacts and we hope that there will be further collaborations in the future.