South African community is committed to support and volunteer for 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar.
South African community signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) in 2015 to support Qatar in all events to convey the knowledge they acquired by holding 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Talking to The Peninsula Brad Habana (pictured), Community Ambassador of South Africa in Qatar, said : “For the last three years, the South African community has been very involved and engaged with various events related to the SC. Our community has been a part of almost every event ensuring that we can support the Supreme Committee with their community engagement initiatives leading up to and including the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar.”
He added: “This year the SC launched their volunteering programme and we as a community are ensuring that many South Africans in Qatar can get themselves register for it and hopefully they will be selected to be a part of Road to 2022.”
“As many South Africans were part of 2010 FIFA World Cup volunteer programme, we hope that a number of community members would be able to be part of Qatar 2022,” Habana added.
The Embassy of South Africa recently invited the SC on South African Heritage Day held at Doha Golf Club.
The SC is running an initiative “Youth Panel” which is a dedicated group of youth leaders passionate about the 2022 FIFA World Cup and its impact on Qatar.
Discussing about the 2018 Youth Panel, Habana said: “This programme is targeting young South Africans and other community youth aged between 14-21 who have the ambition to make a difference and have the ability to help in delivering an amazing sport event.”
“Ours has been very positive journey with the Supreme Committee and with passage of time we have been able to up-skill and inform our community about the infrastructure of stadiums and exact details about the legacy programs such as Generation Amazing, Josoor etc. There is more to be done from us as a community and we want to make ‘Madiba’ (Nelson Mandela) very proud of us a nation and be one of the top contributors for Qatar 2022,” he said.
Talking on South African community members who are signing up for volunteering program for 2022 FIFA World Cup, a South African aspirant of becoming a volunteer told The Peninsula: “We see this opportunity as a helping hand. We experienced volunteering work before in 2010. We somehow have an idea of how exactly it works. We hope to get selected and contribute our best to Qatar 2022.”
Another South African expatriate, Kamogelo, said: “We are excited to work for the FIFA World Cup, we want to spread the knowledge we have about Qatar to all the visitors coming to Doha in 2022.”
