Here's what it is all about!!

I was recently truly humbled and had the immense privilege of meeting an incredible man Mario Van Niekerk several weeks ago. He is the Founder of Great Commission United http://www.gcu.org.za/

Here is a young man supported by his wife Michelle who gives unselfishly of himself not only to the community where he lives, but other communities in Cape Town. He incredibly arranges to supply five thousand meals a month. I attended a church service with him and his family in Freedom Park. I met them at their home in Heideveld as they were loading their car with a huge cooking pot. I later witnessed that this was the meal served to all the people, mostly kids after the service. For many of those people it may have been the only meal they had that day. Talk about making you give thanks for what you have. It was an incredible morning spent with part of the community of Freedom Park. Against the abject poverty within which they live every day of their lives, there is a time of worship and a few hours of forgetting about the situation they find themselves in.

The major component of GCU is the soccer academy, as Mario firmly believes that this fun, teamwork-building sport is the way to bring children into his program and keep them coming. He runs groups of all ages (under age 9, under age 11, under age 13, under age 15, under age 17) along with two senior teams. There are currently 232 boys in the program. The girls are pushing to get their own teams going.

However, encouraging good sportsmanship is just the beginning. To be a member of the soccer team the boys must also take part in other GCU programs, such as after school tutoring and life skills development.

Heideveld is located 15km outside of Cape Town in the Cape Flats region. Initially a community that was zoned for coloureds during the Apartheid era via the ‘Group Areas Act’, Heideveld still faces tremendous social issues that affect it’s inhabitants on a daily basis. Vast unemployment and high school drop out rates, as well as rampant drug and alcohol abuse all contribute to the impoverished nature of the area. However, one of the most debilitating problems affecting Heideveld is the gang activity. Out of the 60,000 residents, approximately 5,000 (1 in every 12) people in Heideveld are involved with gangs.

Great Commission United was founded to help alleviate—and one day, hopefully eradicate--these issues. Mario is all too familiar with the problems plaguing his own birthplace. In his adolescent and young adult years, Mario was a member of one of the largest gangs in the Cape Flats.

It wasn’t until Mario became a father, husband and a born-again Christian in 2000 that he fully understood that this criminal life was leading him nowhere. He also realized that if there were no social programmes directed specifically towards the youth in his community, every succeeding generation (including his own children) would forever live in this devastating cycle of oppression and crime.

That realization is what sparked the creation of Great Commission United in 2001.

Please seriously consider this man and the work he does through GCU. If you would like to contribute through your time in coaching, teaching or pledging your financial support etc, please contact Mario on +27 (0) 73 474 7769.