Bob Munro and Mathare Youth Sports Association receive the Play the Game Award
Founded by the Canadian Bob Munro in 1987, Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) has been working in the slums of Mathare outside Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, for almost 30 years using sport and particularly football to give young people the skills and confidence to improve their lives.
MYSA is run by and for the young people who take part in its activities, and its around 30,000 members combine their passion for sport with a strong community commitment working with health, education and other development activities.
For this work, the Play the Game Award 2015 on Wednesday went to Bob Munro and MYSA at the Play the Game 2015 conference held in Aarhus, Denmark.
In his motivation speech, Play the Game’s international director, Jens Sejer Andersen, summed up the reasons for giving the award to Bob Munro and Mathare Youth Sports Association:
“MYSA has created a sustainable framework for the use of sport to promote social progress, environmental protection, education, individual self-esteem, team spirit, health protection including HIV/AIDS awareness – and, by the way, a successful professional football team, Mathare United,” Andersen said and continued:
“Bob Munro may be the chairman and main catalyst of this development, but it is the youth of Mathare who ensures that this vision is becoming reality under harsh living conditions, marked by poverty, violence, shootings and crime.”
"So for their admirable efforts to create sustainable social progress, for their courageous battle against corruption in sport, and for their continuous fighting spirit and belief in humanity, we are proud to hand over the Play the Game 2015 award to Bob Munro and Mathare Youth Sports Association.”
[This article has been edited by the Operating Team]
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