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The Tigers Club Project, established as a Ugandan NGO and UK charity in 1997, has its roots in the Tigers Football Club, which was formed in October 1994 as a means of building relationships with the growing number of children living on the streets of Kampala. Football has therefore always been and remains a key outreach tool for the Tigers Club Project ; a means of gaining the children’s trust and helping them break away from life on the streets. Communication initiated through football can offer the boys a way in to other aspects of the project offered at the Tigers Clubhouse, such as the feeding programme, the medical clinic and the emergency refuge, educational initiatives and The S.T.A.R.T programme.


Football... towards rebuilding the lives of street boys in Kampala



Football is an international language, a pastime which can break social and cultural barriers and prove a tool for bonding between boys of all ages and backgrounds. The street boys of Kampala are no different in this respect - but their passion for football can be the start of a life-changing and even life-saving process.

Steve Bogere, ex Ugandan football captain, coaches the Tigers Club football teams. In the past, Tiger’s FC has won tournaments and cups including the Kampala Youth Cup and international schools competitions, and has even climbed to the top of the Second Division in the national league tables. Two or three friendly or competition games are played every month and training happens on six days a week. The boys themselves recruit new team members from Kampala’s population of full-time street children, a further sign of their commitment to their club and their ambition to climb higher on the sporting ranks.



But playing football is not just about the game itself: in addition to football techniques, the coaching programme teaches the boys the fundamentals of discipline and of teamwork.

	Real Lives : Nyanzi Samuel Nyanzi trained with the Tigers FC for five years and is an outstanding striker. He had lived at the edge of the golf course with 25 other street children for six years before the authorities ordered their removal. He studied cobbling at vocational training college under the Tiger’s START programme and has since worked in the shoemaking industry. His first love remains football and he was recently signed on by a Super League (Premier Division) side in Kampala.

The Tiger’s Clubhouse



Once contact has been made with a full time street child through football, medical care or outreach on the streets, the Clubhouse drop-in centre, which is strategically positioned between two slum areas of Kampala, becomes the focus for relationship-building. The Clubhouse comprises offices, a washing block, workshops, a medical clinic, a kitchen, an emergency refuge, classrooms, an art workshop and counselling rooms and thus provides a safe place where the boys can wash themselves and their clothes, play, eat, sleep and be listened to while waiting to enter core components of the programme.

Over 200 boys regularly use the facilities at the centre.

	" In the Clubhouse, there is someone who cares. They were generous to me, comforted me and gave me a home" (Michael, the first Tigers boy to go to university, on his experiences at the Tigers Clubhouse).

	Real Lives : Fred Mugisha Fred was one of the first boys to become a START in 1996. Unlike many of the lads, Fred did not have a single living relative and was insistent that Tigers was his family. Perhaps that is why he rarely complained and was gentle, helpful and caring. He studied from P4 to S1 and then decided to change to catering. Sadly, that change coincided with a decline in kidney function associated with a longer-term syndrome he had. Uganda remains desperately short of effective treatment and resources. Tigers was linking Fred to the only dialysis machine in the country when his heart failed. He prayed with us shortly before and spoke of going “home” referring to Tiger’s.

The feeding programme

Malnutrition is a key component in the vicious cycle of ill health, homelessness, lack of education and income opportunities in which the street boys of Kampala have become caught up. Without access to adequate nutrition, it is hard for anyone, let alone a child, to seek solutions to adverse circumstances and to concentrate on breaking away from poverty and habits associated with the struggle to survive.
The Tiger’s Club Project aims to help the boys overcome this barrier through its feeding programme, which constitutes yet another key forum for relationship building. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, lunch is preceded and followed by football training. On other days of the week, boys attending lessons on the educational programme receive a meal.

Medical programme

Life on the streets is harsh and every child living rough in Kampala is vulnerable to violence, injury and illness. The medical clinic set up by the Tigers Club Project seeks to provide relief to the boys, many of whom suffer from conditions typical of street life: coughs and colds, worms, infected wounds, burns, diarrhoea, vomiting and fever, as well as injuries resulting from hit-and-run road traffic accidents and fights. In an average year, the medical team may perform up to 8000 medical treatments, most of which benefit boys under 15.

Severe medical cases can be accommodated in the emergency refuge and referrals are organised whenever necessary. Dr Stockley and staff at “The Surgery”, Mengo hospital and other specialist services have greatly supported the project in this regard. In 2001, for example, Tiger’s arranged a major amputation to save a boy from cancer, and support is also given to boys suffering from head injuries, pneumonia, tuberculosis, abscesses and other conditions requiring surgery and further attention.

However, the work of the medical team, overseen by the Tiger’s nurse, goes much beyond emergency care and relationship building: provision of basic health also generates a key forum where boys can be listened to, where relationships are built and where boys can hear about the other aspects of the project.
And, last but definitely not least, the programme also teaches boys how to help themselves: the advice and regular health classes given at the Tiger’s Clubhouse allow the boys to take control over their own well-being and to better look after and protect themselves even if they decide to return to the streets.

		8-year-old Nyunzi got severely burnt after an electricity transformer fell on him while he was asleep, and was helped by staff at the Tiger’s medical clinic.

Emergency refuge

The Tigers Club is not a residential institution, but the emergency refuge at the Clubhouse provides a safe haven for boys who are in grave danger, seriously ill, convalescing, or particularly vulnerable. Very young children (under 8 years) may remain for longer periods while waiting to be resettled or fostered. An average of around 15 boys per night may occupy the refuge.

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Next page : Realising their Potential

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