In August 2019, a group of us at KitAid visited our charity partner FOMO Malawi, founded by Mary Woodworth in East Africa. We came across a group of boys sitting patiently outside Mary’s house. The boys had heard we were visiting and hoped we would give them a football kit for a team they wanted to form.
We handed over a kit from Harpenden Colts FC and that was the start of an incredible journey for their team, which they named KitAid FC. The boys love their kit and wash it daily, although unfortunately, this means the orange has started to fade, so they’ll be receiving a new kit from us shortly to replace the old. They are a very serious bunch and when their team manager was repeatedly late for training, they held a vote and fired him. At the time they were only 11-years-old. On another occasion, the boys had their kit stolen and set out on a mission to find out who had taken it. Amazingly, they found the culprit and marched them straight to the local police station to make sure it was duly returned.
The team KitAid FC has grown into a squad of 30 players and they have only ever lost three games!
One was against a team of 17-year-olds, one was on penalties and one was because they changed from their "lucky" orange kit. This year they won the Mulanje District Cup without conceding a single goal throughout the entire tournament. We also sponsor the boys so they can play games further afield and have provided them with proper goalposts. They have beaten all of the surrounding teams, including older boys, and our hope is that they will stay together as a team until they are 18. This is when they can enter the Malawi Super League.
The boys have become great Ambassadors for KitAid. They understand the importance of education which is why they help each other with school work and have a rule that homework must be done first and foremost. If not, they will be dropped from the team.
Our saying "It's more than just a shirt" couldn't be more appropriate, and the group of boys sitting in Mary's garden are a lovely example of this.
Twenty-one years later and now with lots of volunteers, we’ve sent out over 700,000 kits to children and adults in 55 different countries across the world.
To find out more visit www.kitaid.net
