Mathare Youth Sports Association
Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) is a sports development aid organization in Mathare, a collection of slums in Nairobi. In sports it focuses mainly on association football, and furthermore it is active in the field of community building. History and background MYSA was founded in 1987 by Canadian Bob Munro who was an advisor at the time for the United Nations in Nairobi, for environmental policy, water resources management and sustainable development. In Mathare children led him to a football field that was covered with flinders and trash. With cleaning the field the first step was made for MYSA. On August 22, 1987, a youth competition was started with 27 clubs. In 2010, 14,000 children in 1,200 teams are active. Meanwhile, MYSA has grown to be the greatest youth association of Africa. Since 1992 there is football for girls as well and in 2006 one-third of the players were girls. MYSA has its own professional football club, Mathare United F.C., which meanwhile has provided four players to the national football team of Kenya. Football players Doreen Nabwire, Dennis Oliech of AJ Auxerre and Jamal Mohammed once started their careers at MYSA. Since its start, MYSA is dedicated to enhancing social