Mamelodi East Project

WBC South Africa and WBC Cares SA team is working on a project to establish a boxing training facility in Mamelodi East (“MEP”).

Mamelodi is a traditional South African “township” or urban residential area that includes a large informal housing settlement located in the northeast city of Pretoria in the Gauteng Province of South Africa.

The Mamelodi township has significant historical ties to the apartheid era policies and legislation resulting in widespread poverty and inequality, a high percentage of indigent lives with recurring economic and social struggles, high statistics of youth unemployment, drug use, high crime, and a multitude of social issues prevalent in this poverty struck community.

This township has not withstanding these obstacles been able to produce a number of local football and basketball teams as well as sports personalities that have progressed to the professional ranks.

The WBC Cares team are of the strong belief that they could as a starting point facilitate the promotion and development of the world of boxing as an aspirational sport in the township particularly focused on the resilient youth in this area who are familiar with all the attributes that the sport of boxing encompasses including “blood, sweat and tears” in the streets that push them to strive and aspire for a better way of life and personal growth against all the odds they face on a daily basis.

WBC Cares South Africa believe this project would inspire confidence and uplift the youth in the area through structured boxing training and mental skills development. The project is be implemented in partnership with a local Mamelodi resident father and son team.

A dedicated boxing coach and father Jan together with his Son Santy open their family home every day to train approximately fifty young men and women as well as a smaller group of established amateur fighters in the sport of boxing.
The Coach and his son are currently operating outdoors in a rudimentary and basic ring with very limited equipment. We have attached and will make available both photographs and videos of the facilities and some of the youth training at the house of the coach.

WBC Cares are going to provide Coach Jan and Santy and the community they serve with a solid foundation to operate a first in the area boxing gym that would be used to train and develop boxers, create a safe and inspirational area for training and enjoyment and grow the sport of boxing and all the encompassing aspirational aspects associated with the world of boxing.

The personal mission fueled by passion in the sport and the streets as dictated by the boxer Santy is knowing the struggle who when asked what the WBC meant to him, his words were that:

“The belt that my role models got, number one, first ever published in the world and even though everyone wants the belt, it’s the blood, sweat and tears – the drive in showing that it’s not simply about the resources it’s what lies behind the scenes, under the trees in the hoods”.