By Nangamso Mabindla
10 April 2006

BUILDING a community involves more than simply constructing houses, as the developers of Haven Hills South, in East London, are showing. Local soccer and netballs clubs were given sports equipment by members of the Buffalo City business sector on Friday, 7 April.

Still in its infancy, Haven Hills South was started by a local social housing association, Intervolve, in partnership with Buffalo City Municipality, Own Haven Housing Association and Conlog, the prepaid electricity meter company.

Intervolve's Andrew Wiseman said the association planned to be heavily involved in the Haven Hills South community. "We were involved from the start. There are about 132 [Reconstruction and Development Programme] houses and flats built by Own Haven Housing Association. We are planning to build 50 bank-financed houses so that we can continue building this community."

Intervolve and its partners were not only interested in building houses for this small community – their interest included producing future sports stars. "This is only the start. It's not big but we aim to assist these local clubs. That is why we are donating this equipment; we want to be involved in recreation as well," Wiseman added.

He also hoped that this was not a once-off event. "As part of our social responsibility programme, we plan to assist in the development of this community. We are not saying we are going to take these teams to top leagues, [but] we want to be involved in the development of these youngsters so that they can also make a living out of sport."

Conlog's Vikki Vink echoed Wiseman's words, saying that her company not only wanted to do business with the Haven Hills South community, but also wanted to be involved in its development.

"We wanted to give something back to the community of Haven Hills South. We wanted to do this through sport because we believe that sport is an empowering activity and is very important to the development of a community," she said.

Conlog was interested in investing in the young people of the country and Haven Hills South was one of those communities that prided itself on youth development.

Speaking on behalf of the two clubs, Peter van Sense thanked the companies for their interest in development, saying that the equipment would be of great help. "We are very happy with this new equipment. We are going to look after it and make sure that we are successful in developing young sports heroes in our community."

The community clubs received soccer and netball shirts and soccer balls.