The Road to Rio
4th July 2009
There will be no team representing New Zealand at the Homeless World Cup in Milan this year, but ‘Street Football
Aotearoa’ is determined to make it to the 2010 Rio Homeless World Cup.
‘Street Football Aotearoa’ was formed in 2008 to provide recreational sporting activities for the homeless of New
Zealand.
Starting as only a small idea there are now four Street Football groups running in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch
and Dunedin, all supported by a partnered agency. Downtown Community Ministry is the Wellington supporting agency.
Street Football Aotearoa founder Katie Owen says “In Wellington, we only had three people show up for the first football
practice,”
“Through word of mouth we now generally have around 16 players, of whom four players represented New Zealand at the 2008
Melbourne Homeless World Cup.”
Street Football Aotearoa will be holding New Zealand’s first Street Football tournament in October, and are hoping to
have five teams competing.
This will launch a ‘Road to Rio’ campaign to send a team to represent New Zealand at the 2010 Rio Homeless World Cup.
Downtown Community Worker Kate Bell, a coordinator of Wellington Street Football practice, says SFA are looking at ways
to develop skills and provide extra training.
“We want to raise national awareness of homelessness, and Street Football is a positive way of doing this.”
ends