When development works, it is a process of mutual learning, sincere friendships and creating a new future, a future that we collectively hope for, a future we choose.

GDM started the Futeco Park initiative that aims to create safe and beautiful spaces to play and learn. Government gave us 10 hectares of land where we want to build 3 football fields and plant 1500 trees; combining ‘futebol e ecologia'.
Infrastructure and Mozambique are two words that does not read well together! Firstly, the Portuguese did not leave much of a legacy and the civil war destroyed most of the little infrastructure that was in Mozambique in the first place. This point holds true also for sports infrastructure. In 1990 Mozambique was the poorest country in the world. Rebuilding from that is not easy and one can, to a degree, understand why precious financial resources are not spent on kids kicking balls around.
Enter GDM: after some years of focussing on capacity and more holistic programs, GDM (Desportivo) came to a point where there were simply no space where young boys and girls could play football. Manica Municipality has one field, serving a population of 40 000 people. As a cheap solution, GDM cleared the old bullring where Hardlife trains his boys and girls. Another problem was that for official games we had the A-Team, Juniors and girls having to drive 60km to Chimoio each week because the municipality's field is not approved and safe. A plan had to be made.
Considering the above and the fact that most of the GDM participants suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition, Futeco Park was born; in our minds! "Let's make our own fields, for older boys, girls and young kids, where the girls and boys won't be chased off. And lets plant trees there for shade and fruits to eat, we can even sell the fruits." So the dream started and we soon saw that it was a very big and challenging dream. To start levelling the first field was a nightmare. Mario's bulldozer was small, slow and expensive. After 10 days we ran out of money and the piece of dirt was still unplayable. The Directors realised that a grader was needed and they searched and searched... After six months nothing has happened, a few companies promised to tell us when a grader became available. Time was ticking away and spirits dropped.
Then one day, we saw the local kids playing football in the road leading to Futeco, using a handmade ball and half bricks for goals. "Wow, we are really doing the right thing, these fields are very needed" commented one of the directors. We gave them one of our real footballs and took their homemade ball as a memorabilia. The kids took the big ball and the next day we saw that they made small goalposts and was playing on the very uneven field that was under construction on Futeco Park. Seeing the kids play, their optimism, their simplicity- motivated us and right there Razao, Schalk and Short got in the car and said "let us go look for a grader, we drive until we find one!" So off they went to Chimoio and believe it or not after a few hours they found a Chinese guy who knew someone. The next morning the grader appeared! At only $60 per hour plus diesel. GDM had cash to pay for three days, and in those three days the first field at Futeco became playable. Not perfect, no grass, but playable.
The poor kids (poor even by Manica standards) showed us all how not to look at the obstacles, not to give up. They inspired the Directors into action and a miracle happened. Their homemade ball, them playing in the road leading to Futeco and their first match on Futeco, before it was ready- these small actions will now be part of the story, the history of GDM and Futeco Park. Sometimes, we think we develop people or that we help them, but if we contain our ego's, we will realise that mostly, they help us.