Boost for Mbare Academy

established by Milton Rankeni and Victor Pakeni, who have devoted themselves to improving the lives of children in Mbare, by providing them with an avenue to play rugby at schoolboy level.
Their selfless action has been an inspiration to those in the rugby fraternity.
Several benefactors have become involved with this project, including National Foods, which has taken a huge interest in the academy’s future, supporting it in a number of ways.
National Foods provided the Mbare Academy with the rugby kit it needed to enable it to participate on an equal footing with other teams in the Cottco Schools Rugby Festival at Prince Edward School this week.
The team is playing under the banner of the company’s Red Seal brand.
The company provided the team, which is composed of rugby players from different parts of Mbare, with full kit, composed of rugby jerseys, shorts, socks and boots.
The boots were particularly welcome for the team, which until now, had been competing barefoot in rugby tournaments.
Because rugby is a new sport in high density areas like Mbare, combined teams of players from different schools in Mbare have been competing under the Mbare Academy banner in various schools rugby tournaments.
The academy recently participated in the seven-a-side invitational schools tournament held at St John’s College, where it won the Under-15 Cup and came third in the Under-16s.
National Foods took the academy under its wing on that occasion too, looking after their food requirements.
They then travelled to participate in the Power Sales Under-16 tournament, which they duly won.
National Foods head of marketing, Anthony Kinnaird, said the company was keen to promote rugby in high density areas.
As part of its involvement, it updated the academy’s logo for it, giving it a new more dynamic one which better reflects the spirit of the Academy.
“Rugby has always been seen as an elitist sport, played only in low density suburb schools. There is, we believe, huge potential for the development of the sport in high density schools,” Kinnaird said.
“The more schoolchildren there are who play rugby, the larger will be the pool from which future national teams can be chosen.”