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EvaluNet is taking its involvement in sports development to the
next level with its sponsorship of the esteemed Town Two Sports
Academy. Based in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, the Town Two Sports
Academy is holding a sports day for budding sports men and women
in the Western Cape. The Academy was founded in 2001 by Ayanda
Mapasa. With a love for sport, Ayanda saw a need to offer
alternatives for the youth of his community as he observed them
idly wandering around with little to do to keep them busy.
He began, with no finances and no support, offering boxing as a recreational activity for youth in the Town Two area. The “gym” is actually a shack, but that did not stop the interested youth in becoming involved. In 2002 the Academy was recognized and registered as an official gym under the Western Province Boxing Organization.
In 2003, after working with the street children of downtown Cape Town, Ryan
Dalton got involved in Town Two, due to his frustration with the lack of structures for the youth of the underprivileged areas; the areas that majority of the street children come from.
Ryan admired the work that Ayanda had began and saw a need, along with
Ayanda’s desire, to expand the project to reach more of the youth.
Ryan became interested in the social aspects of the project and the youth, while
Ayanda continued to push forward with the sport aspect of the project. They attempt at working with the youth on a holistic level, taking both social support structures and sport, hand in hand, to build up the youth of Town Two. The
Town Two Sports Day Clinic is held in conjunction with the Cape
Peninsula University of Technology BTech Project Management students and a number
of other sponsors, including EvaluNet. "We decided on hosting a sports day for that will give every sport program a chance to be developed since the focus has been put to sport like boxing in the
organization," said Nokulunga Mguli, CAPUT representative.
"The motive behind this event was to develop long term relationships with sponsors and sports representative around the community that will be willing to help the organization in future. Our main objective is to enhance skills in different sport program that the Academy is currently offering and promote athletics and the organization amongst people in the community and department of sport in
Khayelitsha. Never the less we experienced difficulties in getting sponsors since most companies planned their financial year in advance for every year and already have NGO that are currently working
with. Evalunet managed to come through for us since they are currently sponsoring small NGO's that do not have enough money to host their
own events."
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