A FOOTBALL team’s kit has been on a 6500-mile journey to a team in Uganda.

Ammanford AFC has donated one of its previous season’s football kits to a local team in Kachumbala, Uganda.

The team’s captain Rhys Fisher was travelling to Uganda for work and saw an opportunity to help the local community.

He asked his team mates to donate their 2011/12 kit along with sports kit and football boots.

Rhys arrived in Kachumbala with two full suitcases of kit, sportswear and even his own clothes to donate to Arizo Kawa United FC.

He left Uganda with the two cases empty.

South Wales Guardian:

Rhys described the moment that will stay with him.

“I got very emotional when we were handing the kit out.

“Around 200 people from the community came out to watch. They’ve never had a kit before.

“The community is desperately poor but their football team is a huge part of their lives.

“It’s like they forget the position of poverty they are in when they’re playing.

“Their faces light up and they are beaming for the entire game.

“Most of the players play bare foot and in whatever clothes they own, so to see their faces when I started handing out the kit was a moment I’ll never forget.”

South Wales Guardian:

Rhys shared a particularly special moment with the team’s captain, Michael, when he took his boots off and gave them to him.

“I was very close to tears.

“Michael was so appreciative of the donation and my boots that he insisted on having us back to his house for a meal.

“He spent over a week’s wages to cater for around 30 of us.

“I didn’t expect that at all, I was very taken back. It was an incredible gesture.”

Rhys works for Cyfle Building Skills; a multi award winning regional shared apprenticeship scheme, that currently employs over 140 apprentices and trains them in bricklaying, plastering, carpentry, electrical plumbing, painting and decorating, maintenance, accounting and business and administration.

Rhys, along with four Cyfle apprentices, were visiting Uganda to help with Cyfle’s second project in the Kachumbala community.

They have teamed up with another charity, EFOD South West Wales, to build a maternity ward, following the success of their previous project.

South Wales Guardian:

Rhys said these donations will become regular now he has seen how much it touched the community.

“I will be heading back over in a few months and I will take another load out with me.

“The team told me that boots and trainers is what they desperately need as it playing barefoot puts them at a massive disadvantage.

“I can’t wait to go again.”