This is how football transformed this shanty town

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At first it was just soccer and everyone seemed happy with it, especially the children (boys) who practiced it in the afternoons.

But little by little that banal entertainment has grown to transform an entire neighborhood known as Etetack, in one of the hills of Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.

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Getting to Etetack is not easy.

Most of the taxi drivers do not know the way, you have to guide them to the nearest intersection.

Some, when they understand what part of the city it is, refuse to continue.

Then it is necessary to take a motorcycle taxi or one of the rickety cars that function as transport in the area and that go up the only road that climbs to the heart of the informal settlement, the Cruce (

Carrefour

) of Manga.

Named for the bar that presides over it, the Manga Bar.

In the steep streets of the neighborhood all kinds of buildings are crowded. An eclectic mix of cement, iron and zinc sheets, in front of which small street stalls are displayed where food, fruits or other things necessary for everyday life are offered: candles, cans of sardines, flip flops, flashlights, sweets, soap, salt, sugar ... Or hairdressers where women and men spend eternities or workshops that fix almost everything, no matter how old and useless it may seem. Since the end of the last century, families who arrived in the capital in search of work settled in what was one of the great forests that surrounded Yaoundé. The men first appeared and built small rooms to take refuge in, which were then stretched out as the rest of the family arrived and resources allowed.

Etetack's only problem is the lack of jobs for young people and infrastructure: we don't have water or electricity, and the streets, especially when it rains, turn into rivers of mud.

The house of His Majesty Fokem Genglo-Ledoem, traditional chief of the area, is a small labyrinth, made up of the additions that have been juxtaposed over the years.

He lives in it with his six wives, his children - he confesses that he never remembers the exact number of these - and grandchildren.

In 2019, in a room set up for receptions and surrounded by his notables, he stated: “Etetack is a miniature Cameroon.

People from all ethnic groups in the country live here: Bamilikés, Betis, fans, Nordists, Anglophones ... And we all get along well.

The only problem that exists is the lack of jobs for young people and of infrastructure: we don't have water or electricity, and the streets, especially when it rains, turn into rivers of mud ”.

GALLERY: A small team, a great revolution

But there was more. The taxi drivers did not want to enter the neighborhood due to the insecurity that prevails in the area. Crime, drugs and prostitution are also Etetack's hallmarks. Since adolescence, the lack of opportunities pushes many of its inhabitants to seek a means of subsistence in criminal activities. When his majesty is reminded of this aspect, he looks around and it is Papa Manga, one of his advisors (and owner of the bar), who responds: “That brings poverty, the lack of resources means that many families cannot pay for your children's school. This is a neighborhood of poor people, but hard-working and honest. Crime comes when there are no means, when there is poverty and that is, perhaps, the biggest problem we have here. We have no support from anyone "

It was the situation of the young people of Etetack that led William Mbianda, a few years ago, to organize a football team with the intention of ensuring that the children had a refuge where they could feel safe and away from the temptations offered by their brothers. greater. At first it was just that, soccer: training sessions and games. But behind it was the dream of creating an academy that could one day supply the great teams of the European leagues with players.

The training began, the boys made an effort and the family that owns the land where the neighborhood is located, gave them a piece of land at the top of the hill to make the field there. Admittedly, the views of Yaoundé from the pitch are spectacular, but if the ball goes off it it can roll down the hill and get lost. His Majesty Pierre Justin Ondoua Ngondoh, representative of that family, and another of the leaders of the area, has been from the beginning one of the great supporters of this project that has made things very different in 2021.

The year everything started to change was 2017. First the sports project was transformed and then, little by little, the rest of the neighborhood. The fault of this is a small soccer team from Les Franqueses del Vallès (Barcelona) that plays in the fourth Catalan regional category of the League, AE Ramassà.

Since 2014, each year Ramassà visits an African country where they play a football match against one of the country's first division teams. The journey goes further. The important thing is their solidarity part: knowing the reality of the country and favoring the social inclusion of the most disadvantaged children and young people. In 2017 they visited Cameroon. Mbianda, who speaks Spanish because she studied it in high school, did everything possible to get closer to the Catalan team and to one of its leaders. At that time he just wanted them to visit the neighborhood and watch their kids play in the hope that they would sign some of them.

The Ramassà did not sign any of those boys, they signed the entire neighborhood.

What the players, managers and family who accompanied them saw that day touched them very deeply.

They had never set foot in such a depressed area before and decided to do something to change that reality.

Since then, the club has worked hard to do so.

He first made the Etetack football team his own and then introduced his philosophy.

Little by little, this has been permeating the neighborhood and they have revolutionized it.

The Ramassà has also been transformed and has become an NGO to be able to implement all the projects they have in mind.

Football, light and sewers

Mbianda had a hard time understanding what he was proposing. The new vision changed all his schemes and dreams. But, in the end, he allowed himself to be convinced that football is not an end in itself, but a tool to offer opportunities to boys and girls. Yes, also to the girls in the neighborhood. An instrument that can be used to attract young people and offer them values ​​and alternatives different from those they see on the streets, without for this reason its objective being to become professionals in the European leagues.

In this way, at Etetack, football became a tool for social change and that has caused many more children to join it. The project is very clear that education is the true engine that can change the reality of these young people, which is why it puts great effort at this point through a scholarship program and reinforcement classes for all of them. And that in the neighborhood there is only one education center: Les Grandes Merveilles private school and its classrooms are full. Many of the students when they finish the school day go up to the soccer field to train and then, at night, go to the project headquarters where they receive support classes. School is expensive, and not many parents can afford it; hence the scholarship program has opened the doors of education to many girls and boys.

The goalkeepers train separately, near the goals.Chema Caballero

In addition, the ground floor of the clubhouse is now finished, which is used for meetings, talks and support classes for the time being.

And the second floor is in the process of being built, which will allow expanding activities.

Some soccer teams (the kids are divided by age) train early in the morning, before school starts, others in the afternoons and on weekends all together. Those days the field is full of girls and boys. Some run around its perimeter, others do Rondos, other zigzagging with the ball between cones, in the background a practice

match

, the gatekeepers for himself with his trainer under the sticks ... And while the neighbors loaded with carafes draw lots to one and all

to get to the small spring, above the field, where the neighborhood population gets water to drink, cook or wash.

But it is possible that this procession that does not stop even when official matches are played will end soon.

Because football has become a unifying agent in Etetack's life.

First the parents of the players who came to cheer on their children and then the rest of the fans who met to watch the games, took advantage of the meeting to comment on the poor conditions in which the neighborhood was: the lack of public services, the lack of transportation, garbage that piles up, dirty water that runs through the streets, the rains that muddy everything.

The players of one of the Ramassà de Etetack teams gather before starting an official match.Chema Caballero

Thus, speaking among themselves, they began to organize themselves, following the example of the little ones, to get the Yaoundé city council to listen to them. Chief Ondoua Ngondoh and the coordinator of the Ramassà project, Mbianda, have led this action to pressure politicians, always with the support of the Catalan team. Endless encounters and meetings that have begun to bear fruit. So in 2020 the light came. And now, in 2021, the construction of sewers that collect rainwater and channel it has been undertaken. Likewise, works have begun to bring running water to the neighborhood. Neighbors are happy despite the fact that the repair of the streets and their straightening has meant the demolition of several rooms or porches of some houses.

The garbage problem is still pending. It is something that affects the entire city of Yaoundé. Neighbors dump solid waste next to the soccer field. Many Saturdays, the players, before training, have to pile them up and set them on fire to get rid of them. Chief Ondoua Ngondoh has given permission to expand the playing field where it is still possible. But as long as the garbage problem is not solved, it will be difficult. Mbianda has commented on the problem with Ramassà and between both parties, the Cameroonian and the Catalan, they are looking for solutions to the problem. There are still many challenges to be solved, but the enthusiasm of the kids and the strength of the older ones make them feel lighter.

Papa Manga saw it clearly from the beginning: “Everyone wants their children to develop, to change.

Nobody likes to see their children involved in bad things.

So this soccer project helps young people get together for activities which helps keep them busy and that's good for everyone.

All of Etetack are benefiting from it ”.

And more if from that first project that wanted to supply players to European football teams, the strength to change the life of an entire neighborhood has emerged.

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