The boys are working with Pitches for Peace to give Welcome Primary learners a wonderful new safe place to play.
Cape Town, South Africa (02 November 2026) – Frank van der Walt, Joseph Allardice and Matthew Fox are in Grade 9 at Bishops Diocesan College. Together, they’re about to build a soccer pitch!
It’s for Welcome Primary School in Athlone. The boys are building a 5-a-side pitch with Uthando South Africa, a non-profit that connects tourism with community development. The pitch is part of its Soccer Pitch for Peace project, which builds pitches from recycled turf and tyres.
A safe pitch gives children a positive place to spend their time. It helps steer them away from violence and gang activity, which can pull in young people with nowhere else to go. The recycled materials also keep waste out of landfill, so the project does good on multiple fronts – helping with community development and the environment!
Under Uthando’s Waste to Wonder campaign, each one uses around 200 discarded tyres packed with building rubble. As we reported recently, the sixth Soccer Pitch for Peace opened this past weekend at Morgenson Primary School in Hanover Park.
Bishops has partnered with the organisation as part of its ‘Big Ideas’ Grade 9 programme that runs over two terms. Students pick a social challenge and work out a way to tackle it.
The programme also aims to widen students’ understanding of structural inequality in South Africa, especially where their own lives are far removed from it. Over the years, Big Ideas groups have visited Delft, Langa, Masiphumelele and Bonnievale and met organisations working with people there.
This group chose access to sport, and in particular opportunities for young people.
The boys want to stretch their budget as far as it will go, so they’re asking the Bishops community for donations of specific building materials and safety equipment. If you, your family or your business can contribute, or you know someone who can, their BackaBuddy campaign has all the details.
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