AMANDLA grew from the dream of two volunteers, Florian Zech and Leonora Reid, who wanted to provide children in residential care in Cape Town with the opportunity to participate in organised ‘education through sport’ programmes.  After working within a children’s home it became obvious to the founders that the children were under stimulated after school, which increased their risk of joining gangs, becoming involved in criminal activity and teenage pregnancy.  The AMANDLA Programme was created in 2006 and in the first year (2007) it had 10 residential childcare facilities around Cape Town participating, which brought together 160 children from many different cultures but similar backgrounds on a weekly basis.  They played in a co-educational soccer league and engaged in life-skill activities.

Due to the success of the first season the project hugely expanded in 2008 and 2009 and the programmes were further developed and completed.  Today youth are involved in various programmes such as: Developmental Football Leagues, Youth Leadership Programmes, Life Skill Programmes and the Crime Prevention Initiative. All programme aim to use football as a tool to provide youth with Life Skills and develop them holistically. An important tool to enable this was the development of the AMANDLA Fair Play System, a point system, which rewards good behaviour, social outreach and awareness and fairness. This system applied in all AMANDLA programmes and points can be score in all different activities.

The demand to expand the AMANDLA Programmes is still constant in 2010 our programmes will reach out to over 2000 youth in Cape Town. AMANDLA has built a clear structure within its programmes, also interconnecting them in such ways that AMANDLA Youth Leaders get the opportunity to coach the teams within their respective facility.

Since 2007 AMANDLA has been facilitating the creation of the first artificial turf facility, the Chris Campbell Memorial Field in Khayelitsha. The activities implemented on the field form the Amandla Crime Prevention Initiative.