Ubuntu Football

When Ubuntu Founders Casey Prince and Michael Jenkins met for the first time in 2009, they very soon discovered that they shared two passions. Both of these men were football fanatics with a deep concern about the generation of boys growing up in some of South Africa’s toughest communities without fathers, mentors, or role models. With a belief that football has the unique power to inspire and motivate young people not only to demand more for themselves but from themselves in areas such as character, leadership, and education, they created what is now known as the Ubuntu Football Academy. They set out to unleash each boys’ full potential in every possible area, prepare them for platforms of influence in and out of football, and help them discover their purpose so that families, communities and society would become healthy as a result of the Ubuntu graduates.

In 2011 they began with 16 boys between the ages of 12 and 13 years becoming the very first Ubuntu Football Academy class. Fast forward 14 years and the Ubuntu Football Academy is now the only Southern African Academy holistically providing globally recognised football training, a no-fee independent school for 70 students, deep formation of students’ character, an academy residence to young men from historically disadvantaged communities and – as of 2024 – a girls program that has already seen great success.

In the past five years, the Ubuntu Football school has a graduation rate of 92% (which exceeds the national average of 81%) with 71% of graduates qualifying for University (compared to 38% graduates nationally) and this enables their graduates to access fantastic opportunities around the globe. They now have 4 players attached to European football clubs, 31 players have been attached to Pro football clubs in Africa, 22 students have moved to the USA on $3.4 million worth of scholarships and other graduates have gone on to become leaders in their communities in the form of police officers, teachers and coaches. Much has been achieved in fourteen years but they have even bigger dreams for the future so watch this space…