Day 2 report by David Gillespie
Posted by Foyer Federation - 31/07/2007
Day 2 in sunny one minute, rainy the next Copenhagen. But the rain hasn’t dampened anyone’s spirits. The morning started with a press conference attended by Mel Young (Founder of the Homeless World Cup), Mikkel Warming (Mayor of Copenhagen), and Charlotte Williams (Deputy Mayor of Cape Town).
After some lively speeches about social change from each of them, the press were allowed to ask some questions, Natalie-Jane Teese the other Foyer resident chosen to report the HWC was one of the first to ask a question. She asked Mel Young of all the problems in the world why did you choose to address homelessness? Mel doesn’t even stop to think for a second, he laughs: “People have told me how I like to pick the most difficult things to do”. He also goes on to add in a more serious manner , that he does what he does because he doesn’t understand that in a society with rockets that can go round corners (everyone laughs), I don’t understand why there is homelessness. There is just no need for it.
Mikkel Warming also spoke of the work that the city in conjunction with Ombold (the Danish street soccer league) have been doing. “We have a lot of ideas but one of them is to host a musical concert along the same lines as the Homeless World Cup but this is still work in progress” and I have to admit he seemed very sincere and passionate in his commitment to the HWC and future projects. But it wasn’t all plain sailing - he said there has been opposition to the tournament in the form of the Danish National Party, but that obviously hasn’t stopped him.
Charlotte Williams was then asked how Cape Town has fared after last year’s tournament. We are trying to change people’s lives through soccer across the Western Cape Town communities: “we will change these people’s lives and reintegrate them back into society either through training or jobs.”
Just time for one more question so I ask Mel Young: “Do you keep tabs on the projects in the city’s where the HWC has previously been?” He replies: “Yes I keep tabs and I always keep in contact to find out the impact it has on the street. I hope we can leave even greater legacies than we do now. What we want to create is more sustainable projects and I feel we could always do a lot more.”
