Afriyea makes golf the anchor of a school for life
Isaiah Mwesige is online. Always present. One post after another on Instagram, on LinkedIn. The man has been making Uganda’s golf more visible to Europe for some time now.Strictly speaking, it is not Uganda’s golf scene as a whole, which consists of around 10,000 active players and around 20 golf courses, that he is focusing on, but the Afriyea Golf Academy. “It is the largest golf academy in the country,” explains its founder. It continuously reaches more than 1000 children. The program works directly at the academy, which is connected to the Toro Golf Club in Port Royal, about 250 kilometres from the capital, Kambala, but also in remote communities through community programs.
More than just a golf program
Early in the morning, the children and young people make their way to the academy in Port Royal: “No, a bicycle is not common,” explains Isaiah Mwesige, who founded the academy in 2020. “Most of them walk.” He also walked 14 kilometres to and from the golf club daily to earn money for food and school by collecting and selling golf balls. Mwesige was orphaned at the age of 12 and was raised by his brother. The situation of the children who come to the academy daily is similar to his own. “Most of them come from underprivileged families,” he continues. At the Afriyea Golf Academy, students receive golf lessons, school lessons, food, and environmental protection lessons. “We take a holistic approach and want to open up a path to the future for the children.” At this point, golf is just a vehicle to a better future, which consists of knowledge and education.
Anyone who watches the videos of the golf days in rural communities beyond the academy that the Afriyea Academy team visits will get an idea of how little the European view of golf has in common with that of Uganda, because the basic financial resources of the golf courses are completely different, as are the living conditions of the children. The topic of climate change is much more present in everyday life because agriculture is the backbone of the economy in Uganda and families get through the months with little money.
Lessons on climate change
Uganda’s important crops, such as coffee, bananas and maize, are threatened by irregular rainfall, rising temperatures and the spread of pests. Soil erosion caused by heavy rainfall is increasing, and at the same time, water is becoming scarcer in many regions. “If I could plan for the future, I would plant many, many more trees,” dreams Isaiah Mwesige to himself. “The right trees with the right roots that fit into our landscape and can survive here.” “A deep understanding of climate change processes is important to us,” he adds. “We want to teach young people about environmental protection.”
Knowing that only an intact environment can ultimately maintain the prosperity we have achieved to date, Mwesige tackles two major topics with his students at the Academy: plastic pollution and trees. Plastic waste is a major problem in Africa, with extremely thin plastic bags and bottles being particularly ubiquitous. Therefore, plastic clean-ups are almost standard practice for the children at the Golf Academy. They occur regularly, and awareness of the problem has long been firmly established here.
The financing of all these measures, the anchoring of golf as a tool for the personal development of children, is possible because sponsors have now been found for the academy, including the R&A in St. Andrews. However, sponsorships for individual children are also possible. It is his personal story that drives Isaiah Mwesige to push the academy’s program. At some point, he rose from collecting and selling balls to the position of a caddy; then he started taking care of tasks around the clubhouse or organizing the children’s training. With the support of the members, he later achieved a bachelor’s degree in agricultural sciences. 20 years after his first foray onto the golf course, he founded the academy to give other children and young people the opportunities he had gained through golf.
In July 2024, he reported on his program during his first visit to the Open Championship. It was his first contact with this international golfing world, in which millions are paid out in prize money, and the price of a logo shirt is roughly equivalent to a worker’s monthly income in one of Uganda’s rural areas. Anyone who talks to Mwesige about such differences does not sense anger but simply enthusiasm about his task. The Afriyea Academy in Uganda has already made the lives of many children better with the help of golf.
Foto: Lee Collier