Corporates in bid to help One Stone produce good players again

Hadisi Ramadhani Omari, Board Chairman Dagoretti Youth Welfare Organisation. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

For along time, Kawangware based One Stone FC has acted as a feeder club to the various clubs plying trade in the Football Kenya Federation Nairobi Region leagues.

The outfit has produced prolific players who have been a force to be reckoned with locally and internationally.

Currently, the club is on its knees. The team is a pale shadow of its former because of crime, drug addiction and incarceration of its members.

It is on this note that well wishers and corporates have come on board to help resuscitate the team and their Dagoretti Community Youth Sports Centre base.

“We have a league that will kick off in Kawangware in March. One Stone FC is among the ten clubs in the zone that we are going to support,” BetKing Kenya Head of Marketing Klaire Muriithi said. He said the Sh500,000 that her organisation donated yesterday will be used to refurbish the Youth sports centre hall which acts as a central point where the players and the community at large meet and socialise.

“The hall is multipurpose, it is where the vulnerable, drug addicts, ex-convicts, street children and commercial sex workers interact during their rehabilitation.

“It is also acting as a central point where the players and other locals meet to watch their favourite English Premier League games.

“So renovating it will be beneficial to the players and the community around,” said Muriithi.

“We will partner with the Dagoretti Youth Welfare Organisation to enhance the current viewing structure,” Muriithi  assured.

Former One Stone player, Hadisi Ramadhan, welcomed the refurbishment terming it a very timely idea.

“We are confident that with this kind gesture, the team will be revived and the players will be back to football very soon. This in turn, will help to lessen crime in the area,” he said.

“This centre has been the home to many abandoned youths who are in recovery.  It provides a recreational and sports centre for them, a place to gather as a community.

“We appreciate this donation, will help renovate this place and make it more habitable and making a huge difference in the daily lives of the individuals,” he added.

The community sports centre was founded in 1996.

The centre is a safe haven where the community can safely interact with each other while making a living from their sports and movies viewing center.