Harambee Stars midfielder Johanna Omollo
is among those who will be fighting to be named the Community Hero
during this year’s Safaricom Sports Personality of the Year (SOYA)
gala to be held in Mombasa on
January 24.
The Belgium-based Omollo has been nominated because of the work he does with the Johanna Omollo Foundation in Dandora where he begun his football career.
The foundation which was started in 2017 has been supporting kids through education scholarships, mentorship and entrepreneurship programmes.
The foundation also provides sanitary pads to teenage girls among many other initiatives meant to uplift the livelihoods of the youth of the informal sector.
Over 80 kids have received school fees and other supplies while 200 girls benefit by getting sanitary pads every month.
The Harambee Stars player is also a member of Common Goal, a charitable organisation that draws willing professional footballers and coaches to donate one percent of their wages to non-governmental organisations working in football.
This year Omollo was named the winner of the FIFPRO Merit Award for his outstanding community work in Dandora.
Athletics coach Eric Kimaiyo will
also be in the mix alongside former national cricket team player Peter Ongondo
and another coach Bernard Makumi, who works mainly as a volunteer in
helping the
mentally challenged athletes.
Kimaiyo, who is also the coach of world marathon record holder Brigid Kosgei was nominated due to the good work he has been doing at his Kapsait camp.
He is credited with giving life to the
former Fila athletics camp by pumping in money to help restart the camp
and naming it Kapsait Training camp.
He also runs a school, Kapsait Athletics Secondary School
which he mainly uses to tap talent.
Kimaiyo admits talented athletes who are allowed to study at
the school at subsidized rates while those who can’t afford to pay school
fees are allowed to study for free and pay the money later once they
start making money in athletics.
World Under-20 champion Edward Zakayo is
one of those athletes who are studying at the school among others. Apart
from Brigid, other athletes who have gone through Kimaiyo’s camp are the
likes of Elizabeth
Romukal.
Others include Leah Kibet a semi-final at the IAAF World Under 18 Championships, East Africa Secondary School Games 5,000m champion Catherine Relin, Joseph Muigai, Reuben Longosiwa among others.
On his part Ongondo, a former assistant cricket coach has found a way of integrating the less privileged members of the deaf society into the sport.
He first started working with Pangani Special School before approaching Ngala School of the deaf in Nakuru where he tried to teach cricket.
They held their first mini cricket for the deaf this year which he fund raised through facebook with members of the cricket without boundaries also chipping in.
The deaf girls won two matches in the mini cricket held last month with two of them were given call-ups to the Under 19 national team trials.
Ongondo who works with two volunteers to
help with translation solely caters for their allowances and sources for
kits from the President of Malta Cricket Paul Bradley whom he approached
when he took up this
initiative.
Another nominee is Makumi who has used
the power of sports to ensure athletes with intellectual disabilities
access primary and secondary education. He has advocated various
secondary school head teachers to
admit athletes with intellectual disabilities.
He also supports and mentors his players to undertake economic activities from the money they make from sports.
Coach Makumi runs his club as a unified club, meaning that he gives opportunities and nurtures talents for youth with and without intellectual disabilities.
This has not only transformed the lives of the players but that of the community as well. Because of his efforts County Government of Makueni has recognized persons with intellectual disabilities and now the county mobilizes resources to support their sporting activities