Franciske Venter has cerebral palsy but, even though she has reason to find life challenging due to her disability, she takes life as a challenge and finds ways to live her dreams.
She was born with her disability and life was challenging from day one. She struggled to walk and she needed speech therapists from a very young age.
She initially went to a primary school for kids that did not have disabilities and she found it difficult and fell very quickly behind the rest of the kids due to her problems with her fine and gross motor skills. So she was moved to Pretoria Cerebral Palsy School where she could be close to her physiotherapist and where she could get individual treatment.
Franciske was always a busy kid and she needed something to help her deal with her frustrations and extra energy so she started to play sport. She started with javelin and shot put and after three months she got provincial colours in sport.
Sport was motivating for her, at first she did not want to be seen as disabled but then she started to make friends and she was able to talk to them about her disabilities. She realized that she could make a difference in sport.
She always wanted to play cricket but there was no cricket for kids with cerebral palsy. In 2003 she placed a picture of herself and the Proteas captain at the time, Hansie Cronje, in the Huisgenoot. This was spotted at the Titans Cricket Union and she was encouraged to go out and look for a form of cricket that she and others like her can play.
She did a little research and found that there was a format in India that she liked. She started her own club and introduced this form of cricket to South Africa.
A highlight in her life was in 2014 when India toured South Africa and she got to play against them. She learned a lot from the Indian side because they have been playing disabled cricket for a longer period of time and were far better than South Africa and they were willing to share.
She also coached KFC Mini-Cricket for kids with varying disabilities and she had to deal with a lot of challenges both physically and mentally.
Now she is busy writing a book with a ghost writer about herself and disabled cricket in South Africa. It is a large project and she is currently overwhelmed by it but she is not going to give up. She knows that it will help parent of disabled kids and it will help disabled kids know that they are not alone and be positive and they can achieve their goals.
Other than sport she has also had the opportunity to act in 7de Laan, a South African soap opera, as an extra. She want to take it seriously but she knows that there are challenges and it will be difficult for her to get a permanent role in a series or soap opera. Her next step is to take classes in acting and see how far she can get.
Her message is that if you have something in life that holds you back, don't give up and you can achieve your goals. You only live once and take advantage of every moment you get.
The Gelvandale Cricket Club was founded in 1977 and is considered one of the best cricket clubs in a disadvantaged area in South Africa.
The club initially started as a cricket club but has now changed to a general club that offers a lot of different sports including lawn bowls, tennis and hockey.
Many Proteas cricket players like, Robin Peterson, Alviro Petersen, Garnett Kruger, Ashwell Prince etc and ExProteas coach Russel Domingo all started their cricket at the club however if it wasn't for apartheid who knows how many other Proteas players they would have produced.
Gelvendale also had many well know players from the New Brighton area that played their cricket against the club and the most well noted was Khaya Majola who often played against them.
Even the Jordaan brothers, Danny that is well known in football and Max who works for Cricket South Africa, all played their cricket at the club.
However we cannot just look at the top players at the club to see the value of the club. In talking to Robin Peterson, he told me that the club was a fantastic place for him to go to after school and it allowed him to make a lot of friends by playing sport. He said that it gave him a fantastic opportunity to believe in himself and keep off the streets where there were some bad distractions.
The problem in the club today is that even though they are still trying to get kids off the streets and out of gangs and other less than desirable occupations, they are battling to get the kids involved in sport.
Gelvandale Sports Club are actively involved in the local schools even busing them in after school so they can play various sports in after school. A lot of these schools do not have facilities that will allow them to play extramural activities but with the first class facilities they have to opportunity to play sport. Also the schools can focus in spending the little money that they have to focus on education instead of paying for sporting facilities.
Rochard Dolley, youth and events manager, at the club talks to us about what the club is about and who supports the club, he talks about the future plans of the club and what they are looking to do to get kids involved and the survival of the club.
I met Belinda Allie in 2012 when her Primary School, Malabar
Primary School won the opportunity to play against the Proteas in a match of
KFC Mini-Cricket.
Belinda got involved in cricket in the 1980’s when cricket
was considered at men’s game. The area that she came from was meant to be
playing mini-cricket but that was not the case so the schools in the area had a
meeting and some of the men in her area said that she was a good leader so they
should use her to run the programme in the area.
The first reaction was that she was not strong enough to run
the programme but Belinda believed in herself and she told them not to underestimate
her.
She was given a 3 month probation period to prove herself
and she flourished in those three months. She started helping her coaches and
they all started growing so much that after the three month probation period a
lot of the other coaches asked if they could take over the leadership in her
area.
Luckily for her, there were more coaches that supported her
than what opposed her. Everyone got a chance to validate as to why they think
that the various parties should get the role but in the end everyone came to understand
that she was the best candidate and she was unanimously voted in.
Since then until today she has been running mini-cricket in
the Northern Areas of Port Elizabeth.
She contributes her success to the massive support that she
gets from the coaches in her region. They are all motivated, passionate and are all willing to go the extra mile. If you
have the passion, and no matter what conditions you find yourself in the kids
will be there to make all the hard work worthwhile.
She says that she recently hosted a coaching session at
Gelvandale Cricket Club where she was coaching some of the new coaches in the
programme and some of them could not even hold a bat properly but they were
passionate and their focus was on the kids so they learned very quickly and now
they can take their passion back to their kids and can get them started at KFC Mini-Cricket.
Belinda is currently the deputy head of Bayview Primary
School in Helenvale, Port Elizabeth which is an area rife in gangs. It is not
an area where it is easy to motivate kids to play sport but she has found that
all the kids need in the area is love and they are all willing to play sport
and look for other avenues in life where they do not have to resort to gangsterism.
Sport breaks a lot of barriers in her school and she has
created a safe haven in the school where all the kids can stay after school and
just have fun.
She was concerned that since Helenvale is a dangerous area,
the kids from New Brighton and Gelvaldale do not want to go into the area to
play sport but Gelvandale Cricket Club has allowed her kids to play KFC
Mini-Cricket at their club and they are also looking at playing other sport at
the club.
Her kids passion is what motivates her to look for
alternatives so that she can overcome the issues that she faces in her area. She
finally has a place to coach her kids where they can play sport away from the
dangers in her area. All the kids want to do is get active and here they can do
it in a safe place.
Gary Dolley, the
president of Gelvandale Sports Club has got a developmental hockey programme for
the kids to take part in. They also play football, tennis and other sport.
Belinda finds that the kids that she coaches and teaches are
blessed with a natural sports ability. She finds them thirsty to learn.
There is another programme that she is involved in. She used
to teach at Malabar Primary School and the school it situated in an area where
there are a lot of foreigners that live there. They have people from India, Jordan,
Pakistan etc… This is an area that is a lot safer than Helenvale and parents
are keen to watch their kids.
Belinda organized for these parents to get involved in
coaching their kids KFC Mini-Cricket, and it did not matter if it was
mother-daughter, father-son, father-daughter or mother-son they parents and
kids were all invited. The parents love it and they are creating lifetime
memories with their kids.
Now the better cricket players have fallen part of the
Gelvandale hub that has been organized by Cricket South Africa and the Eastern
Province Cricket Board.
Belinda is a remedial therapist and she has kids that suffer
from foetal alcohol syndrome and other kids that have troubles studying but
sport gives them a chance to play. The best time to find these kids and to deal
with the problems that they are facing at school is whilst the kids are playing
sport. You can encourage them and just talk to them about their problems.
In the modern school syllabus you have to have physical
education, life orientation, and they need to promote participation at the
school and that helps them develop a healthy mind by also taking part in
physical activities.
Belinda does a lot of coaching at the Gelvandale Cricket
club. She finds the club, the coaches, the board and absolutely everyone
involved in the club so helpful and professional. She has meetings, KFC
Mini-Cricket festivals, coaching and any kind of assistance that she needs.
She thinks that KFC Mini-Cricket teams and schools should contact
the local clubs that can help them with organizing their sport and festivals
especially for the schools that don’t have adequate facilities.
To help with coaching the kids the club often sends their
senior players and even some of the international players that have come from
the club get involved in coaching her kids.
Kids at her school need to look for good role models and
Belinda says that her principal and her teachers all become role models for the
kids. The club also helps with supplying role models for her kids to inspire
them and to show them a different way of life to the one that they used to.
Belinda has even got the police involved to talk to the kids and to assist the
kids.
As role models the teachers have a lot of pressure but they
also have a huge responsibility to be correct role models so Belinda and her
school principal provide support for the teachers through seminars, psychologists
and motivational speakers.
So how do you make a change in your area? Belinda says that you
need passion, passion and passion. She believes that if you bless others then
god will bless you. Her daughter has just qualified as a doctor and there are
other blessings in her life and she believe that it is due to her helping
others that God is helping her. Anyone can do what she is doing and all it takes
is for you to take the initiative and follow your passion.
