Cape Town - Former Germany and Bayern Munich goalkeeper Oliver Kahn will be visiting the Cape Flats later this month for the Gugulethu/ Manenberg launch of Oliver Kahn Safe-Hub.
Khan can most certainly be counted as one of modern football’s greats, the 46-year-old having spent 14 trophy-laden seasons with European giants Bayern Munich, while accumulating 86 caps for the German national team over an 11 year period.
His achievement list includes winning the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Cup, eight Bundesliga titles, while he also played in the final of the 2002 World Cup, a 2-0 loss to Brazil.
From a personal point of view, Kahn has won a record four consecutive UEFA Best European Goalkeeper awards and two German Footballer of the Year trophies. He is the only goalkeeper to have claimed the Golden Ball award, thanks to his outstanding form in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, where he conceded only one goal prior to the final, pipping Brazilian great Ronaldo to the accolade.
These days he runs the Oliver Kahn Foundation and is passionate about using football as a means of upliftment in disadvantaged communities.
One of the initiatives he is involved in is the Oliver Kahn Safe-Hub, which in partnership with local NGO, AMANDLA, is set to launch its second branch in Cape Town, on Wednesday, May 18, in the Gugulethu/ Manenberg vicinity, an area notorious for gang and drug-related crime.
The event will take place at the Intshukumo Comprehensive High School, close to the Nyanga Junction, and is something Kahn is both proud and passionate about:
“I strongly believe that if we create a positive, encouraging environment for young people, they can achieve anything. This Safe-Hub will be a meeting-point to drive youth and community development – it’s a place for learning and fun, and I am incredibly proud to be a part of it,” he said.
AMANDLA and their partners have been running two other Safe-Hubs for the last nine years, assisting up to 6,000 young people in Diepsloot (Soweto), and Khayelitsha (Cape Town). There are plans to open more branches in South Africa, while Berlin, Germany, is set to develop the first Safe-hub outside of South Africa.
The idea behind the Safe-Hub concept is to provide local youth with access to an artificial football pitch, a training academy, a psychosocial support centre, a Youth Café – which is run by local youth and offers free WiFi, while there is also an area providing for young entrepreneurs, start-ups, local NGOs and government initiatives.
African News Agency