{"id":213919,"date":"2022-01-18T21:08:18","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T19:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/bangladeshi-engineering-troops-bring-football-joy-to-makpandu-western-equatoria-state?lang=en"},"modified":"2022-01-18T21:08:18","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T19:08:18","slug":"bangladeshi-engineering-troops-bring-football-joy-to-makpandu-western-equatoria-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/bangladeshi-engineering-troops-bring-football-joy-to-makpandu-western-equatoria-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladeshi engineering troops bring football joy to Makpandu, Western Equatoria State"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_wrap\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/thumb\/0ba6ba7e0003959\/600\/418\" alt=\"United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS)\" \/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>There is a reason football is the world&rsquo;s most popular sport: the beautiful game can be played almost everywhere.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>In Makpandu in Western Equatoria State, it used to be the word &ldquo;almost&rdquo; that defined the situation for boys and girls attending primary and secondary school, and everyone else in the community.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s when Bangladeshi peacekeepers serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan stepped in and up: they prepared a football ground in the area, played a friendly against the local team and handed over two sets of jerseys, footballs, a couple of trophies and a South Sudanese flag to the schools.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Our club is rich now: we had nothing a few days back, but&nbsp;now&nbsp;we have a football field. There will be&nbsp;a&nbsp;few big players&nbsp;coming from&nbsp;here soon,&rdquo; promised Baraka Veko Timothee, representing Makpandu Football Club in the friendly match against the engineering troops.<\/p>\n<p>They have indeed endeared themselves to the local youth, including their chairperson, Moses Kinasegu Fanika.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We are very happy for your support.&nbsp;For as&nbsp;long&nbsp;as&nbsp;we will&nbsp;be able to&nbsp;play here, we&nbsp;will&nbsp;remember you. I also thank you for what you have done for our schools,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The payam (administrative division) administrator, Clement Pasio Tustu, also relished the special moment. He recalled that the peacekeeping mission has also rehabilitated the vital road between Mundri and Yambio.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Many thanks to all. Now we can go to Yambio in less time, and a&nbsp;football field&nbsp;was also very much needed. When&nbsp;we were told&nbsp;that a football&nbsp;ground was going to be prepared, we were so happy. If you need anything, let me know. My people are ready to help,&rdquo; the grateful administrator pledged.<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).<\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"well well-sm\"><b>Media files<\/b><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/f1e471073094380\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/f1e471073094380\" alt=\"United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS)\" style=\"max-width:500px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/f1e471073094380\">Download logo<\/a><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a reason football is the world&rsquo;s most popular sport: the beautiful game can be played almost everywhere. In Makpandu in Western Equatoria State, it used to be the word &ldquo;almost&rdquo; that defined the situation for boys and girls attending primary and secondary school, and everyone else in the community. That&rsquo;s when Bangladeshi peacekeepers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-213919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/bangladeshi-engineering-troops-bring-football-joy-to-makpandu-western-equatoria-state.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}