Durban — AmaZulu Football Club is determined to give cancer a red card.
This week, “uSuthu” announced its partnership with DKMS Africa, a non-profit organisation which creates awareness about cancer and blood disorders.
AmaZulu, one of South Africa’s oldest soccer clubs started by migrant workers in the 1930s, is the first Premier Soccer League (PSL) club to sign up for the DKMS Soccer Heroes campaign to encourage people to register as stem cell donors and give someone the gift of life.
AmaZulu public relations officer Philani Ndlela said it was important for them to use their influence to spread the message and encourage all PSL clubs to also blow the whistle on cancer and blood disorders. He said many people were ignorant about cancer and its impact, and AmaZulu were keen to get on board when approached by DKMS.
“It is important for us to ensure that everyone that needs assistance – that needs support, that needs donations – gets the right support and they get the right donations at the right time so that we can preserve life …
“At AmaZulu Football Club the most precious assets are the people. If you don’t look after the people, then you don’t have a brand and you don’t have a football club. I really wish to take this message, using all South African languages, to ensure it is well received and is well understood by people at large.”
Ndlela said they had already held talks with their first team, as well as their development players, about the new initiative.
Last year, AmaZulu striker Bonginkosi Ntuli died of cancer at the age of 32. However, the club said its commitment to partner with DKMS Africa was not related to his death.
“As a club, we saw this as an opportunity to educate AmaZulu fans as an inclusive football club. This is a football club for everyone, people across all races, for all genders, for all ethnic groups.
“We feel that this is an opportunity to bring an education element using our influence in society.” Ndlela said some players had also lost family members to cancer, while many had friends who were battling the disease.
“You will see that in some of our supporters’ engagements we’ll always bring DKMS pamphlets and documents so our supporters can learn about it. And our sponsors and partners will be there to assist us in ensuring that this message is spread throughout society, because we really mean it when we say that we need to red-card cancer in our society.”
DKMS donor recruitment manager Xolani Hlongwane said every 72 minutes, somebody was diagnosed with a blood disorder in South Africa. Currently their registry had 76 000 donors, a tiny proportion of the country’s more than 62 million people, he said.
DKMS Africa head of community engagement and communications Palesa Mokomele said they were known as the Sunflower Fund until they joined international NGO DKMS three years ago. In total, DKMS had 12 million people on its stem cell registry internationally.
“But for you to get a matching stem cell donor, it has to be with someone within your own race. So we started this partnership with AmaZulu, firstly because we could see that we had found a language to speak to black people about stem cell transplantation and black cancers.
“Culturally, these are difficult conversations for us to have and we don’t even have the language, in some vernacular languages, to explain what stem cell transplantation is. As the science progresses, the more we have to find new terms.”
She said reaching out to AmaZulu turned out to be a “match made in heaven” because they immediately agreed to be part of the campaign.
“South Africa is a soccer-loving nation, AmaZulu is an organisation that represents this province proudly.”
They would continue to spread the message about blood disorders and encourage people to sign up as donors through the medium of football.
“Cancer is not just a health issue; it’s a life issue that affects people who go clubbing, people who play football, people who are children. Four-month-old children are diagnosed with cancer. What we want to do with the Soccer Heroes Campaign is to galvanise society, footballers and fans to start to have this conversation around demystifying some of the myths about cancer,” said Mokomele.
Also at the launch of DKMS Soccer Heroes was Owami Mbhele, 26, a UJ student who had to relinquish his dream of being a soccer star after developing severe aplastic anaemia, a rare life-threatening disorder in which the body can’t make enough new blood cells.
“Growing up, I had dreams of becoming a professional football player, but now obviously that dream has changed. It’s just for me to actually get a guaranteed second chance at life because I need a matching donor,” said Mbhele.
“To get that, we have DKMS and our partnership with AmaZulu, and the whole plan is to push and push, get more people to donate, because if you look at it mathematically, to actually find a match – and it’s 1 in 100 000, so you can imagine – we only have 76 000 potential matches,” he said.
While Mbhele’s dream of being a professional footballer is no longer possible, AmaZulu director of football Pedro Dias brought some cheer and hope to the event.
“Thank you, Owami, for sharing your story. You inspire us and me and AmaZulu; we’re going to make sure you find your match. “
I can tell you that as a director of football, I already received your report.
“Should I talk with you or should I talk with your agent? I’m sure we’re going to see you more times. You are very welcome to be with us when we are in Joburg, watching a game with us, or being with us,” said Dias.
Independent on Saturday