Great Commission United
Project Overview
What? Great Commission United (GCU) is a football and basketball orientated project that aims to keep young people from Heideveld and surrounding areas on the Cape Flats away from gangs and crime and plugged into positive influences and aspirations. GCU recognises that the reversal of gang culture and poverty begins at grassroots level. The project strives to enrich the children’s life experience through soccer basketball and to ignite a desire of wanting more from their lives.
How? Young people are collected from all over the community and brought to Woodlands Primary School to engage in life skills with a team of volunteers. After these sessions they move to the field for drills and exercises and then team up to play in matches. GCU believes that if they can play together they can live together and respect and appreciate each other. As the children get older they are given an opportunity to become coaches, referees, leaders and role models in their own right, gaining new responsibilities and experience.
Outcomes? The project interacts with young people ranging in age from 5 to 21 with approximately 300 attending GCU on a weekly basis. Former gang leader and founder of GCU, Mario van Niekerk, strongly believes, “If we can inspire change for good in one child, they have the capacity to inspire change for good in others.”
Great Commission United
Mario van Niekerk
(Project Leader)
Postal Address: 3 Groenberg Road, Heideveld, Athlone, Cape Town 8000
Tel: +27 21 637 5668
Cell: +27 73 474 7769