| 09 Aug 2009 |
| Most people would agree that autonomy and ownership lies at the heart of development. It seems unnecessary to mention that in their pursuit of ‘freedom' (Sen 1998) community members need to show the confidence to choose the pursuit of things that they deem important and to do so in ways that they view as appropriate. Nothing revolutionary in this I guess. Yet, an academic that recently visited GDM was heard saying to a colleague, with a clear sense of disapproval: "GDM is only about the first team football... they don't understand that they don't have a choice, they have to do it [i.e. development management as taught in Western universities]". Now, one can sympathise with the young Masters student, since she was taught in a world where people feel clever when they invent categories like sport-plus vs. plus-sport projects and where community projects are donor driven and steered according to quantified models and indicators of donor defined monitoring and evaluation. My reaction to the ‘they are only worried about the A-team football' was initially: "what nonsense, it is not so!', but then I realised: "So what if it was?!" Who am I or this 23 year old white girl from Johannesburg to decide what should be important to the people of Manica? We were not there in 1980 when they formed the club in the middle of a civil war. We were not there for the past 25 years when they kept things going investing their precious time and resources. But now, if this local expression of a community bettering their own lives does not fit into our box, it validates criticism? Is it not typical of the colonialism and racism stories of the past to decide for black communities what they need and should want? So what if the people of Manica are fanatical about having a great football team that wins games against other teams from central Mozambique? Who are we to rank the importance of activities for people in Manica, whether it is planting carrots, typing on a computer, kicking a football or drinking a beer? I give GDM half my salary, lived there for 6 years and I don't assume the arrogance to decide what Manicans should value and when. So, today GDM played the last game of the Provincial phase of the league. We won and with that edged out Vumba and Despo de Chimoio to be the Provincial champions of Manica. The whole town is celebrating and going wild with joy. I've had sms's from Beira, Nampula in the north and Maputo in the South; all friends of GDM that heard the news on the radio, all Manicans very proud of ‘their' home-grown club. But, am I allowed to celebrate? Should I be happy and brag about this achievement that follows months of hard work? Or should I lament that the whole country is not rather talking about our under-14 female life-skills curriculum launched in a local primary school and monitored and quantitatively measured? For those who is into the vision of- and understands what football means to the men, women, boys and girls of Manica: thanks for the support and happy celebrations. For those that can't be excited about something as trivial as a football team: sorry, we will be back to computers, capacity building, organisational charts, strategic planning, report writing, minute taking, money counting, gender empowerment, English lessons, chess, research and objectives clarification, first thing tomorrow morning. |
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| Phone: Manica: +258 82 514 0359 Johannesburg: +27 82 81 51 224 Fax: Manica: + 258 256 62 105 Johannesburg +258 11 559 4549 Web Address: www.fcmanica.com E-mail Address: g d m @ f c m a n i c a . c o m GPS Coordinates: 18°56'9,34" S 32°52'22,91" E |
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