Kids doing karate in Khayelitsha

Walking into the Eyethu Multipurpose centre where these kids learn karate you hear nothing but karate chants, though their sensei hasn’t even arrived yet. One of the boys shouts as they do their Katas and the class of boys and girls respond.

When the sensei walks in, the whole class bow, facing the door, and shout another karate phrase, then carry on with what they were doing. The sensei walks around looking at his class, notices students are not kicking correctly and quickly gathers them together to show them how it’s done.

“In our area gangsterism is rife and I saw that a lot of young kids are always chilling in street corners,” says sensei Monwabisi Njomba. “That got me worried. Since I have a skill I can teach them, I decided to start the club in 2012.”

“At first the parents thought I was just getting their kids into fighting since karate is that kind of sport. But after seeing how disciplined their children were becoming they started understanding the sport.”

The class is divided into three groups with white belts in one corner, yellow belts in another corner and orange belts in a third, each group with one of the more experienced club members showing them the moves.

Twelve year old Lazola Geza, an orange belt , deals with the white belts. “I joined karate because I wanted to stay away from gangs and be able to protect myself,” he says.

“I love the sport very much because it teaches discipline and respect, and everyone is happy at home because it keeps me off the streets.”

Eleven year old Nwabisa Mtuyedwa, a yellow belt, started karate this year, she says. “Some of my friends decided to come and join me after they saw that I’m learning to defend myself and I looked cool in my karate suit.”

Like most sports clubs in townships, Eyethu Goju-Kai faces its fair share of challenges. Raising money to go to the Goju-Kai National Championships in Johannesburg recently was a problem.

“At the moment we are not getting support from anywhere,” says Njomba. “When we went to the nationals, parents had to pay their children’s travel fees which were not cheap considering where the children come from. Competitions are good for the kids but for us to be able to compete we had to have all the necessary equipment and I had to buy from my pocket.”

“We don’t want money; we mostly need equipment.”