Wilsen Initiative - Sport Tourism

Mathare North Rangers FC (MNR) is a product of Wilsen Initiative which nurture’s youth talents in football. It is a community club with the following goals;

• We connect the youth with their community and beyond, whereby forging lasting friendships using football.
• We envisage traversing our country by playing friendly matches and tournaments that will foster understanding of cultural diversity of people in Kenya and beyond.
• We use sports tourism to help the youth explore more about their country and communities while learning about why they should embrace diversity in cultures, tribes and trends around. By doing so we shall be contributing to the National fabric of peaceful cohesion of people either directly or indirectly.
• We also envisage to play in the top league of the Kenya Premier League (KPL) but at the moment it’s not the prime goal why the club was established, rather we would like to connect the youths with opportunities in football around and beyond, basically exposing their talents and urging them to use them to acquire new skills and opportunities.

Club history
The club was established in the year 2010 by Kamuzi Banda (Ex-AFC player), Kennedy Anyango (Nairobits alumni) and Samwel Kimindiri (Trainer at Nairobits). The club was called Rangers F.C though it didn’t have any links with the Rangers F.C (http://www.rangers.co.uk/) in the United Kingdom or Posta Rangers in Kenya whatsoever. It was just a group of friends coming together to play football for fun and participate in MYSA (www.mysakenya.org) zonal league, the team lacked a lot things from uniforms, footballs, leadership and talented player s, and this was expected because their major goal was to play for fun. Early in 2011 the three founders of Ranger F.C in Mathare North approached Wilson Masaka (Founder of Wilsen Initiative/ Web developer / ICT trainer at Nairobits) for a proposal to steer  the ‘ship’ with his many valuable experiences working with the youth, community  and  being well exposed football player having played in the Norway cup in 1997, 1998 and 1999 respectively.

At first Wilson couldn't just say yes, because as he had mentioned he didn’t want to do something that only him had the passion, so he was hesitant to repeat past experiences whereby he helped a group of youth establish a football club which was misguided by the passion of some of the youth of ‘get rich quick’ mentality or what’s there for me attitude expecting everything from one person while contributing nothing.

After many persuasion and assurance ( by Kennedy, Samwel and Kamuzi) Wilson could see a new dawn in generational change in youth who were seeking guidance, very passionate and ready to cooperate in seeing their team grow by actively participating in administrative issues of the club and that’s exactly what Wilson was looking for in a team. When Wilson Joined hands with the three founders the first thing was to re-brand the team and giving it some unique visibility around and beyond.  Some of the new ideas brought by Wilson and the team are;

• Ranger F.C changed its name to Mathare North Rangers F.C (M.N.R) inspiring champions…
• The team bought one uniform(18 jerseys ) which are all written the name of the team
• One member of Wilsen Initiative donated one set of uniform (18 jerseys)
• We have at least seven footballs of good quality.
• We are expecting new uniforms from Wilson’s friend from Germany early August 2012.
• A part from the material gains we have a great match of skills and talent within the team and everyone is working together in making small contributions when it’s required.

Having mentioned all this team still needs more support to help us reach our vision especially in our sports tourism program to engage the youth even further and link them with opportunities.
So if you have an idea or a football team and you would like us to do an exchange with your team or organization kindly write to info[at]wilsenx.com or Wilson.masaka[at]gmail.com

We thank everyone for the support offered so far to our club and general direction of Wilsen Initiative.
Official T-shirt designed by Wilsenx (Wilson Masaka)

Team Officials
Wilson Masaka – Head coach, Thomas Abungu – Asstitant coach, Team managers-  Kamuzu Banda, Samwel Kimindiri, Kenndey Onyango, Team Captain- Edwin Kipkoech


Written by Evaline Akida ( Asst. Secretary - Wilsen Initiative)

The flip of a life time experience

When I was enrolled to the D&F fellowship academy in Hamburg  I thought that ten weeks was too long to be away from home and I was really worried on how I was going to cope in a new environment. Little did I know that the ten weeks well populated with educational, fun, meet the people tours, presentation activities etc, was after all not even enough! During the last week before departure I wished that more months could have been added for us to continue learning. At some point I had mixed feelings of either staying even longer or going back home because I found a new home (D&F- Hamburg) away from home.

 My first feelings before living to Hamburg changed due to the fact that everything at D&F academy was professionally planned that made me feel relaxed and optimistic daily. It is hard to come to terms with the reality that I’m now back home in Nairobi- Kenya , but with time I will fully adapt to the working cultures and the social aspect of Nairobi once again which is quite different to my Germany experiences for example I loved time culture, transportation, communication and the general infrastructure.

So far there’s a lot I miss from being with my co-fellows working on our dream plans, challenge session, working and walking together etc; that gave me an opportunity to fully discover my potentials and the true spirit of working in a diverse society that has open new horizon for me in terms of personal growth. Sometimes time runs really fast that you wouldn’t know what you have achieved especially if you are fully occupied with what you love doing and passionate in succeeding with your dream project at heart, mind and soul, while the best part is having it clearly written with implementation plans and general strategy to reach the stars. If there’s something I’m a proud of this year it will be my experience in Hamburg and the feeling of being back home (Kenya) full of energy and inspirations to make positive impacts.

Now I’m back in Nairobi and everything feels relaxed and I’m thankful to my family, Nairobits, D&F and everyone else for the support they offered me while I was home away from home. I’m elated to see everyone again working hard and happy despite our living situations! I know a lot is expected from me but I can assure you this is the new dawn for full discovery of my inner self and I will continue to inspire many youths and realize my dream project. To my co-fellows let us all make sure the network grows stronger and your memories will always last forever in my heart, mind and soul, thanks for playing a part in shaping my life by being such a great team, I learned some new trades of life from everyone. All the best with your dream plans till we meet again in this ‘small’ world but in the mean time let us meet in the cloud… (Online).




More about my coming soon initiative check www.wilseninitiative.wordpress.com

And the video channel at http://www.youtube.com/wilsenx

A day of Optimism

True inspiration comes when you surround yourself with optimistic people. I’m honored to be among the fifteen fellows here at the D&F academy in Hamburg on the sports coaching fellowship. It’s now exactly two months before we leave to our home countries and I remember vividly when I arrived on the 16th April 2012 I had no friends or family member in Hamburg and the only thing that I knew was to stay in Germany and participate in the fellowship program which the milestones were clear for the next 10 weeks which was communicated to me before.

I was very expectant of many things with a lot of worries in mind if what I read was really going to be true and this is a normal feeling I guess many people have when they travel to a place for the first time and to make it even worse no one knows you. I’m very confident and happy now to share my feelings of optimism after all that I have learned from my co-fellows, D&F staff and experts. One of the greatest things I will leave with back home is a clear road map of my dream project which I was able to think through together with my colleagues and D&F team who helped me clear the mist ahead and see myself succeeding no matter what challenges I might face.

 I arrived with a forest of ideas and for me to get a clear way through my project, D&F academy offered me the best learning environment that I didn’t have a chance to experience before considering my background. This experience makes me even feel inspired with a lot confidence in solving the puzzles that I will face when I’m back home be it organizational or life in general.

In my bag pack back home I have good memories from day one till the last days to come and now I have a big family in Hamburg who believes in me and my project that instill the feeling of courage to stay on the course to discover my potentials even further. I love the adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” my experience here in Hamburg especially on the two optimism days could neither be captured on pictures or even words and that is why my new version of the adage is “It feels different if you smell or taste the food” This is a metaphor meaning in this context when you experience an event real time it is quite different when you watch it on TV or get story narration from the third party.

One of my best times in Hamburg I would say is optimism day and the visit to Dedon company even though all the days I learned something special either from people around me, sports project activities and generally all the environment I have been to. So for one to succeed in life many of the things I have learned are; Be optimistic in life! Smile and believe in yourself. Surround yourself with optimistic people and people who believes in you. Take every moment as a learning point.

Don’t expect everyone to say YES also try to understand and learn why others said NO. Embrace diversity! Don’t be selfish pass on the knowledge to the next generation. Change starts with you so think possibilities and be positive. See opportunities in difficult situations.

I hope these few notes will help you even become optimistic in life, I have realized that the first thing I have done today is to wake up early before everyone else and write this article. I’m really inspired by my good experiences at D&F academy.

Adrienne Morgan founder of www.morgan-hammond.de & musician, Wilson Masaka and Oya Ogurcu board member at D&F and Interior designer www.odesign.com.tr 

Long live D&F !

Article by Wilson Masaka ( Founder of Wilsen Initiative) D&F fellow – Hamburg, Germany