The Homeless World Cup has long been widely reported on in Ireland, and it’s a tournament that fills me with hope. It’s pretty obvious, of course, that most of the participants have gone through significant hardships in their lives, and the chance to represent their country probably means a great deal to them.

It got me thinking, though, for all it means to represent a country in the Homeless World Cup, it probably means that much more when you come from a place where the average person wouldn’t have much opportunity to travel, let alone people living on the street.

The next edition of the Homeless World Cup will take place in Cardiff in late July/ early August 2019, and Zimbabwe are one of the participants. They’re in the aftermath of the fall of Robert Mugabe, and the country is in turmoil. What would it take to bring a football team of disadvantaged people to another country against that backdrop? I asked head coach Joseph Kuseka:

Hi Joseph! Can you give me a short history of this team – how did they come together, and how are they funding their trip to Mexico?

The Zimbabwe Homeless World Cup team is coordinated by Young Achievement Sports for Development (YASD) – a community-based initiative that seeks to empower young people through mentoring, positive coaching and education to transform their lives. The Zimbabwe Homeless world
Cup team was formed in 2006 after many families in Zimbabwe faced the destruction of their homes following a government directive to demolish unregulated and unplanned settlements. An estimated 700,000 families were left homeless.

The founders of YASD are survivors of this cleanup exercise. The founders were young people who came up with a homegrown solution to address the challenges they were experiencing due to being homeless.

I understand you had a female manager, Pearl Gambiza, previously in charge of the team for the tournament in Mexico, still a relative rarity in the tournament. How was her tenure, and how have things been for you so far?

Pearl was the 2018 Manager for the team and was amazing in advocating and championing women’s inclusion and participation in sport. Through her initiatives, she created platforms to enable more women to be involved in YASD sporting initiatives. Her tenure saw her advocating for the 2019 team to have a quota for women and the 2019 team will feature 3 female players. Pearl should have been part of the 2019 team but could not renew her passport due to challenges in the country where the travel document is not available.