Kampala Kids League (Uganda)

Kampala Kids League (KKL) was founded by Trevor Dudley and Lesley Magnay in 1998 to help boys and girls aged 4-14 in the capital city of Uganda to improve their lives through sport.

Schools in the city were coming under pressure at that time to improve academic results and sports were being excluded. New schools were also being built without playing fields. Children therefore desperately needed the opportunity to play team sports in Uganda.

Since then over 14,000 boys and girls from over 160 different Schools, Orphanages and Street Children's organisations have successfully completed over 50 different seasons of Football, Basketball, Baseball and Mini Cricket activity. Over 2,000 adult volunteers have been trained as coaches and administrators and over 150 different local corporate sponsors have supported the leagues.

The programme offers opportunities for children from different social, economic and religious backgrounds to mix and play together. In 2003 Trevor Dudley was awarded a fellowship from Ashoka Foundation for creating significant social change in Kampala. Trevor Dudley was awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours of 2008 for services to children's sport and health education in Uganda.

For the last 6 years KKL have prepared a youth soccer squad to travel to Europe and this popular team have now won 15 International soccer tournaments, including becoming 5 times Gothia Cup World Youth Cup champions, Norway Cup winners, 6 time Tivoli Cup winners and twice winners of Football Festival in Denmark. This league is now one of the most successful of its kind in Africa. Talented young Ugandans from KKL are now being offered places in Academies in Europe.

In 2005 the KKL Mini Cricket programme was awarded the International Cricket Council's (ICC) Best Junior Cricket Initiative Award in Africa.

Stanbic Bank (known as Standard Bank of South Africa in South Africa) have been the prime sponsor of the KKL programme since inception in 1998.

KKL relies on corporate funding to support its innovative social sports programmes and is always looking to attract new supporters to expand activities.

Following the success of KKL, The Kids League (Uganda) (TKL) was set up in 2004 as a non profit to help boys and girls aged 8-15 at grassroots level throughout Uganda improve their lives using sport as a means to create education, health and life skills awareness.

In November 2007, KKL were honoured with a visit by HRH The Prince of Wales who wanted to see the successes of the programme. It was the first visit of the Prince of Wales to Uganda.

HRH Prince Charles visited the offices of KKL and met all the staff and 20 boys and girls representing programmes that KKL and TKL have established. Prince Charles lifted one of the Gothia Cup trophies and took penalties against one of the boys much to the delight of the waiting photographers. The Prince of Wales unveiled a plaque on the KKL office block to commemorate the visit. For 2008 KKL are planning several events in Uganda to celebrate 10 years of activity.

External link to Kampala Kids League [http://www.kidsleaguefoundation.org]