Wa Nabaad Football

The Wa Nabaad (Peace) Football Tournament was held on Saturday, November 7th at the Eastleigh Community Centre's football pitch -- With a big thanks to Rueben Mutua and the eight member implementation team of community youth whose hard made the day a huge success!

The tournament was built around the theme of "Building Peace". As part of our community mobilization strategy, the tournament enabled various emerging community leaders and youth to come together and discuss the issue of peace and unity within Eastleigh. Now that the tournament is over, these young people are continuing to meet and look at ways that they can be a positive influence for peace within their community.

When the planning for the tournament began back in August, we had hoped for 200 participants. It was a wonderful see the overwhelming community response as 368 Somali and Oromo youth registered. There were 28 teams in total.

Over a thousand community members also joined the excitement as spectators , cheering on their favorite teams. The biggest crowds gathered for the late afternoon playoff games and the awarding of trophies (and a 5000 ksh/- cash prize) to each of the championship teams.

Being a part of an organized tournament was very exciting for many of the community youth and children who largely play in informal matches.



Captains of the Itals Boys, champions of the seniors tournament, receiving their team trophy from Ehud Gachugu, director of the Eastleigh Community Centre.

The Shooting Stars were the winners

of the under 14 tournament

Rueben Mutua, program officer for the Eastleigh Community Centre, with captains of the Arsenal Boyz winners of the under 12 tournament.