Coach and founder of the Overstrand Whale Boxing Club (OWBC) Mzi Damesi has big dreams of taking boxing to local communities with a ‘pop-up’ boxing ring. “Boxing is a great sport: it teaches youngsters discipline, courage, self-defence skills and the resilience to handle life’s challenges,” he says.

Mzi, who hails from Ilinge near
Queenstown in the Eastern Cape and has been boxing since 1990, is also
the chairperson of the Overberg Open Boxing Organisation. He started the
Zwelihle-based club in 2007 and offers classes for free to the 40
members, all boys aged between 8 and 25. He not only has five children
of his own who depend on him, but is also a father figure to many of the
OWBC members who hail from single-mother households.

The boxing gym at the Zwelihle Sports
Grounds in Lusiba Street comprises three repurposed shipping containers
set around a central concrete square. One of them contains
weight-lifting equipment, another houses punch bags and is used for
sparring, while the third serves as a kitchen/office. Classes are held
every weekday between 17:00 and 19:00.

“Most people in Zwelihle don’t have
money or jobs and they can’t afford to pay for boxing lessons, so the
club runs as a charity,” says the coach.

“We are appealing for funding to
enable us to promote boxing all over the region. We would love to do
boxing clinics in Stanford, Gansbaai, Hawston, Sandbaai and Mount
Pleasant, and many other places in the Overberg.”

On 9 March, Mzi took 10 boys to
Dunoon, Cape Town for the regional boxing tournament, returning with
five gold and two silver medals. The Junior gold winners (age 15-16)
were Akhule Mgoqi and Siyakholwa Nxanti. Gold medallists in the Youth
category (17-18) were Atang Sikiti and Siphamandla Damesi (Mzi’s
nephew), while Thando Zongezile (11 years) brought home gold, and Mabini
Kase and Lutho Likho (both 14) each brought home silver in the Junior
category.

“We’ve been competing as a team since
2008, including the national championships in Johannesburg and we have
achieved a lot,” says Mzi. “That year, Phumlani Damesi, who is also my
nephew, won bronze as a junior at the nationals. Many of our members
have won gold in national and provincial competitions. Others
competitors are scared to fight my boxers because they know they will
lose!”

Recently, at the Dunoon regionals,
Akhule beat South African Junior champ, Sixolise Lupindo. Akhule, now
15, has built up a stellar boxing CV in recent years: in 2015, aged 12,
he was elected captain of the SA Cadet (12-14) boxing team.

A former OWBC member, Tanner Metodes
from Onrus, was national champion three times (in 2015, 2016 and 2017)
between the ages of 15 and 17, and was selected to Team South Africa for
international fights.

“If we put up a ring, an open boxing
club, people will show up… and in this way the sport of boxing can grow.
It’s such a great way to keep fit and stay away from the negative
influences of drinking, drugs and crime,” says Mzi.

The main stumbling block for the
club, however, is funding for new equipment (gloves, punch bags, boots
and weights), transport, tours and a ‘pop-up’ boxing ring (the latter
costs R54 000 new, without the cost of transporting it from Johannesburg
to Hermanus). To date, the club has been surviving on haphazard
financial and material donations, mostly sourced in the last two years
by Hermanus businesswoman Carole Dods, who volunteers as the club’s
spokesperson and fundraiser. She also allows Mzi to use the telephone
and e-mail at her shop, the Jol Emporium.

“If 30 people or local businesses –
preferably more – gave the club R100 a month, like NSRI donations, the
club would be just about viable. It costs us R2 500 a month just for the
taxi fares to enable our top 15 boxers to attend tournaments in the
Western Cape, and that doesn’t include the nationals twice a year,” says
Carole. She says Mike and Elaine Bayer, owners of The Beanery coffee
shop and roastery, have been particularly supportive of the club in
recent years.

Last year Elaine donated R20 000 to
the club that was raised during the No Frills Walk, while Mike donated
R2 000 from a service award he won from the hospitality sector. The OWBC
also received R20 000 from last December’s charity artwalk, ‘Night of a
Thousand Drawings’ which it used to buy new and second-hand equipment.
“Mathew Browne from ProActive Fitness helped to source the equipment for
us at cost and when the kids went to the nationals, he let them train
at his gym,” says Carole.

David Bellairs, director of the Cape
Town Cycle Tour, donated seven of the Pedals for Peace bikes, an
AfrikaBurn initiative, to the club’s top seven gold-medal boxers last
year. “The kids were overwhelmed. Most of them don’t even have running
shoes, and when they go to competitions they often have to borrow shorts
and T-shirts from friends,” says Carole.

The club has five second-hand
punching bags, but they are quite worn now and need to be replaced. “The
main thing we really need, though,” says Mzi, “is transport in the form
of our own vehicle as we travel a lot as a team and hiring a taxi for a
long day in Cape Town, for example, is very expensive. Sometimes we get
last-minute invitations to attend a practice, sparring or mini
tournament. It would be great to be able to go if we wanted to.”

The club has had many SA champs in
the past five years. Akhule, Siphamandla, Atang and Siyakholwa all
qualified for the inter-provincial tournament in Queenstown from 26 – 27
April, but again, finding the funds to attend is a challenge. “I’d love
to take our boxers there, to give them more experience,” says Mzi.

If you would like to donate money or equipment to the OWBC, contact Carole Dods on 082 890 5749 or 028 313 2769. See also the club’s Facebook page (Overstrand Whale Boxing Club)

This article first published at https://thevillagenews.co.za/fighting-for-positive-change/

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