Timeline

 

2011

The highlight of the year is the opening of the Lesotho Football for Hope Centre in September. The centre, which is now  the K4L HQ in Maseru, includes office space, a classroom, a health clinic, a five a-side Astroturf pitch, an 11-a-side grass pitch, a vegetable garden and a small orchard. There is also a growing range of activities on-site including a Literacy Project and income-generating activities for children living on the street such as the RecCYCLE Scheme. With new funding from USAID Kick4Life continues to improve and expand national delivery of the K4L Curriculum, and in March K4L is awarded the Community Award at the Global Sport Forum in Barcelona.

2010

In January Kick4Life is selected by Football for Hope as the seventh centre host as part of the 20 Centre for 2010 Campaign. As construction gets underway in Lesotho, a team of youth takes part in Festival 2010 during the World Cup in Johannesburg. Kick4Life wins the Beyond Sport.Award for Health and Fabio Capello hosts the launch event for the book Eleven: Stories of Development through Football by Kick4Life cofounder Steve Fleming.

2009

Kick4Life continues to grow, with new partners such as Unicef, GTZ, Laureus and the Premier League. The OVC Initiative is launched, working with children living on the streets of Lesotho's capital city Maseru, and Test Your Team is named Best Project for Health at the Score4Africa awards. 25,000 youth have now completed the health education curriculum, and more than 8,000 have been tested for HIV. A team of youth from Lesotho represent Kick4Life at the opening of the first Football for Hope centre in Cape Town.

2008

In April new England Coach Fabio Capello visits Kick4Life and attends a Test Your Team event where he observes a boy testing for HIV. Capello describes it as one of the most emotional moments of his life and calls on the world of football to do more in the fight against HIV. The charity is also visited by Prince Harry who represents Kick4Life in a football match.

2007

With funding from the Vodafone Foundation, Kick4Life gets underway in Lesotho with a health education and testing programme aimed at vulnerable youth. Later that year the Test Your Team campaign is named as the Best Implementing Project for HIV/AIDS, by the National AIDS Commission of Lesotho. Kick4Life joins the streetfootballworld network and in November the first Kick4Life All Stars Tour takes place.

2006

The official launch of Kick4Life takes place at Southampton FC's St Mary's Stadium. Lesotho is announced as the country where Kick4Life will begin operations, and with funding from Sentebale a research project is undertaken.

2005

Steve & Pete Fleming from the UK dribble a football for 250 miles across Malawi, raising £15k for an AIDS orphanage. The experience inspires them to found Kick4Life, registered as a charity later in the year.