With sports activities and clubs on the rise in the Chintsa community we've yet another positive story to tell, this time of Sindile Bokwana who has started a boxing club in the Chintsa township and who mentors a group of about 22 youth in this ancient sport.
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| Sindile, middle, with a small group of young Chintsa boxers |
- Story by Odwa Shaun Mtshini
Born in 1966, Sindile came to Chintsa after dropping out of Nyameko High School in Grade 10: his
parents didn’t have enough money for him to continue going to school so he came to Chintsa seeking job opportunities. Seeing that there wasn’t enough money at home for everyone to benefit from, he
decided to help the family out.
At the age of 18 he had his first job and was employed at
Chintsa East full time. As time and years went by he saw his friends going
to a boxing gym and decided just to check it out. He would go to the gym whenever he got the chance, and back
then he didn’t have to pay entrance fee. Sindile continued to live and work in Chintsa, and then in 1989 he went to Johannesburg and found full time work there.
While he was working in Johannesburg he started training at
a nearby boxing gym. Time went by and he began to find exposure in boxing: he got
recognised and he started boxing professionally, fighting for Gauteng Province. He
would come back home to Chintsa from Johannesburg during December.
One December while he was visiting his family he met someone and started
dating. Years went by and he got married and started having a family of his own, so by
2001 he could no longer continue boxing because he had children and a wife and no longer had the time to go to the gym. He decided to give up professional boxing.
But that was only the beginning of the story: he decided to come back to Chintsa and open a boxing
club with the help of others. They used the Chintsa East Primary School hall
for training, and still train there to this day.
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| the training room: the hall of Chintsa East Public School |
They are faced with some problems like a lack of
transport to places were boxing tournaments take place, and also they need, at the very least, a mini boxing ring so they can have a place of their own to train.
Sindile is currently seeking support for his boxing club - both for transport and for a boxing ring - as his young boxers are not getting the professional training and support they need to work as much as they need to in order to be competitive. He also seeks support because half of the costs for expenses come from the young boxers he trains, and he puts in the rest from his own pocket. So far the boxing club has been generously supported by African Heartland Journeys,
Buccaneers Backpackers, The Village Bistro and Friends of Chintsa.
He is training about 22 kids between the ages of 13 and 22, but a lot of them do not come regularly. He thinks this is because their parents
don’t know much about the boxing club. He said he’ll be visiting all of his
boxers' parents and have a word with them about the Chintsa Boxing Club.
“We would appreciate all the help that we can get in order
for us to keep our gym running, any type of donation towards the gym” he says. "I would also like to thank Ross Burns for the much needed equipment donation!" Ross was a volunteer from the UK
who took Sindile into town and purchased the much needed equipment.
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