The healing power of football
|Image: Angelica Ibarra Rodriguez
By Rebecca Corbett
Uganda overcame the odds to be at the Seoul 2024 Homeless World Cup, when just days before the tournament began, their visas were granted. It was a mixed feeling for the players and coaches - flight prices had gone through the roof and the coaches had to choose just four players to get on the plane, leaving half of the squad behind.
They’ve also been overcoming the odds at the tournament, winning many of their games and putting on a performance which makes them one of the most successful teams to play with four players since Brazil came to Poznan 2013 Homeless World Cup.
One of the four Ugandan players is Ambrose Otim, who explains that for him the beautiful game has a much deeper meaning, “football is not only just for fun, it’s like medicine, when you play football, you feel that everything is ok.”
Football has helped Ambrose to overcome some of the most challenging times in his life. At 17, his father was the family’s main breadwinner - a police officer while his mother stayed at home. Life for him and his two younger brothers was good, they were living in a place provided by the civil service and were comfortable.
But then one day his father went to work and didn’t come back, dying in the line of duty. Ambrose and his family sought answers to what happened but were met with silence.
“The report wasn’t clear about his death, they just handed over a dead body to us and the family had to struggle to handle everything with the funeral and the burial. From then, until now [seven years later], there’s been no compensation.”
Ambrose explains, “Before then we had everything, our family was ok, our family were staying together but then immediately he passed on like this and everything went to zero.”
The family was forced to leave their accommodation. With nowhere to go, they were forced apart – his two brothers and mother moved in with separate aunts, while Ambrose had to fend for himself: “I am the first born, I have to struggle and go and make a way for my family. Life after he died became totally hard – everything changed at that time.”
“We are all scattered,” he explains and separately they all struggled, with his mother still trying to support them.
|Image: Anita Milas
“Our mums sells along the roadside just to get something to keep us up, but not something that can change our lives maybe – just something to keep us going, not to sleep hungry.”
“Where we used to eat three times a day, we had to reduce – maybe eat something in the morning and then something in the evening while going to sleep just because there was no money.
“Where other people were enjoying three, four meals a day – you have to eat one, maybe two. In Uganda, for around 2,000 Ugandan shillings (approximately 50c) you can buy posho and rice – that’s the cheapest food you can eat, and you eat it on a daily basis.”
Without his father’s salary to pay school fees Ambrose had to leave.
“No education, no food, you have to eat the little food that you have and save what you have left for the evening. Nowhere to sleep, you have to go and knock at your friends’ place to have somewhere to sleep. That’s how I’m surviving even up to now.”
Throughout this time football was a constant for Ambrose, “football was the order of the day but football without support was also hard. No motivation, no coaches, no equipment but you just have the love for the game so most of the time was time on the pitch.”
Ambrose has always played football, after he had to leave his school where he’d been team captain, he continued to play in the community and dreamed of using his football talents to get a scholarship for university.
It was during this time he was invited to join a programme by Youth Sport Uganda, who he credits for changing his life.
“I was 17, life was hard – I was out of school, nothing to do, idleness was the order of the day – you end up in crime, violence – this project tried to shape us and guide us and restore hope to us.
“That’s why we find ourselves coming along to such events – to remove the sadness, to remove the trauma. We have a hard background but when we are here, we feel like we’re ok. Everyone at home is happy just because we’ve travelled.”
|Image: Angelica Ibarra Rodriguez
The whole experience has been new for Ambrose and his teammates: “We’ve never slept in such rooms before – we feel we are at the top level – we don’t want to leave the rooms because they are too good for us. Everything is new – new in our eyes.”
“The A/C, warm water in the shower rooms and cold water – we don’t know how to use these things. The light that senses motion – we were like ‘ah!’ we got scared! We thought we’d spoiled something, but it was fun!”
Taking part in the Homeless World Cup, Ambrose explains, isn’t just changing his life, it’s also inspiring others, “it’s very hard for people from the slums to travel, so when they hear you have travelled it is like a source of hope to many. Others be like, ‘eh, Ambrose has travelled, we should also try hard, we should also play football and join the organisation and do the programmes.”
While Ambrose dreams of university, his focus day to day is tackling the problems in his community: “I lived in a slum that is embraced with a lot of abuse of drugs and substance. We are still tackling the same problems. I am fighting so hard to change the lives of others.”
“Youth Sport Uganda has changed very many lives of young people in Uganda, because even if we leave here and we go back home – life will not remain the same. We may not get anything, but it is the best opportunity – we don’t mind about payment, this is enough. When we are here, we are doing what we like most - which is football.”
“Life can never remain the same when you play football, you make friends and now we’re at the Homeless World Cup. – we came without knowing anyone, but we are friends with many teams – just because we are together.”
“There isn’t any negativity, no discrimination, I think the love and the spirit of humanity is here. The spirit of sportsmanship. That’s the power of sport.”
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Words: Rebecca Corbett
Images: Anita Milas / Angelica Ibarra Rodriguez