The spirit of rugby has travelled across the globe as unused jerseys from Cayman Rugby found a new home with youth rugby players from Kenya, thanks to a simple yet powerful idea from one of their own countrymen who resides in Cayman.
It all started when Charles Maina of the Dillon Eustace Cayman Storm RFC rugby team, ahead of travelling back to his native Kenya, asked a question that sparked the initiative.
He reached out to Justin May, a Cayman national men’s rugby player, to ask if the team had any spare or old kits they weren’t using.
His request prompted Cayman Rugby to look through its storage, where boxes of quality, unused kits from previous seasons were sitting.
Rather than letting them go to waste, they decided to upcycle them, turning a simple donation into a mission of “sustainability, supporting the global rugby family, and ensuring the spirit of the game continues to grow”, Cayman Rugby said on their Instagram post.
The kits were donated to Rugby Gem – a rugby programme targeting children from orphanages – and The Mathare Foundation – a charitable organisation focused on positively changing the lives of youth and women.
For Maina, a former player for Rugby Gem’s senior team, the donation was personal as he understands the profound impact a simple jersey could have on these young athletes.
“As for Mathare Rugby, it is a team that is located in the slums and coached by one of my former high school captains. A donation like this helps them offset a huge burden off their shoulders,” Maina said.
“It can be summarised [as] assisting a friend that is doing all he can to shape generations of players’ futures, while instilling some core values that come with the sport while keeping them away from illegal activities,” he added.
Maina explained that this gesture “gives a glimpse of hope and extra motivation to the players and coaches” as it is “like a reward for all the unseen work put in by both parties”.
In trying to describe the players’ reactions to receiving the jerseys, he said, “There is no way possible of expressing how excited they were to receive them.”
He added, “No words can show how both the clubs and I are grateful to Cayman Rugby as whole and Justin May who organised the donations.”
Maina concluded by quoting a former Cayman national rugby player.
“In the words of Chris ‘Jacko’ Jackson … ‘It’s an awesome way to connect our brotherhood through sports and better yet through rugby’.”
