Playing sport in the stormy sea of street life

Abstract

Currently, there are many street children in South Africa (SA). They have been robbed from the safe harbour of family life and on a daily basis experience the stormy sea of street life. Society has an obligation to intervene in the lives of these street children through, for example, quality education, basic health services and sport programmes. This article focuses on six street children in Tshwane, SA, who participated in a 'Learning Life Skills through Sport' programme that ran over a period of six months in 2006. After the programme had been completed the six street children were asked to narrate their experiences of the programme. These narratives were analyzed by means of narrative analysis. From the findings it seems that these six street children acquired 'personal-related skills' (e.g. respect, enjoyment) as well 'sport-related skills' in various sports (e.g. soccer, cricket), and that the 'Learning Life Skills through Sport' programme allowed them to experience a safe harbour amidst the stormy sea of street life.