Kids' Activities 05-1

Enabling Afghan Children to Watch
the World Cup on TV

	Members of the 2002 Club Afghan Project hold a meeting. (2002 Club Afghan Project)

Nobuya Yukawa, a 21-year-old university student who lives in Saitama City, and other young Japanese have been raising money to allow children in Afghanistan, which has been hit by bombings and earthquakes, to watch the World Cup on satellite TV.

The group plans to raise ¥3.5 million ($26,920 at 130 yen to the dollar) and use it to set up two antennae in the Afghan capital Kabul so that the children can watch World Cup games on satellite TV. They are also aiming to collect 2002 soccer balls that people no longer need and give them to the children so that they can play soccer as well as watch it.

Soccer is the most popular sport in Afghanistan. But under the former Taliban government ordinary families were forbidden from watching TV, so kids hardly had any chance to watch soccer. Yukawa says: "However tough life is, we want the kids to keep on hoping. We want to enjoy watching the matches with them."

About 20 members of the student organization 2002 Club Afghan Project (representative: Ryota Fujino, a first-year student at Keio University) are helping to raise funds. Some people suggested clothing, food, and shelter should take priority over soccer, but the group says that it is also important for people in tough situations to have fun, and soccer is a good way to achieve this.

Yukawa and three others will go to Afghanistan in late May for two to three weeks and watch the World Cup with the children. Yukawa, a fourth-year student at Aoyama Gakuin University's College of Science and Engineering, is researching his graduation thesis. He says: "I'm so busy I hardly have time to sleep, but it's fun being involved with a lot of different people. Through these activities I have felt people's kindness." (Saitama Shimbun)