Football Africa

TEKUA

Our first stop in Tanzania or Tanzane-ia as JJ insists on calling it was with an educational facility called Tekua just outside Arusha. Arusha is the biggest city in Northern Tanzania. It is very green and very beautiful.

 

Tekua is a free school set up by Chris and Ally and run for disadvantaged children in the Arusha area. The school is an offshoot project of a local school which is based a further 20kms outside of Arusha. This school was set up by the former head of the Detroit Black Panthers, whom we were unfortunate not to meet. Attendance to the school for certain kids required an 8hr return journey. Tekua was set up as a reachable solution for these kids. It was set up in 2003 and now teaches 80 children, aged 7 to 18.

 

As well as a core curriculum of languages and maths children can specialise in art and computing. The artwork produced the students is then sold on locally and shipped abroad in order to generate further funds for the school.  It is a testament to the quality of the artwork that they can sustain the schools running expenses. 

 

Once we had interviewed Chris we were invited into a classroom, which contained c.50 kids aged from 14 to 21.  They all introduced themselves and asked what we were doing and how we had travelled to see them. With well-practised precision Andy drew our route on an air map through Europe, North and now

East Africa

. You can always tell our journey is being explained when you see ‘air mapping’. With a conductor’s finger you chart a horizontal line through Europe to Genoa, Genoa down to Tunisia, take an air-right into Libya, until you stick on the brakes at Port Said, from which point you just waggle southwards with a flourish a la Atomic Kitten. The kids were gracious enough to act impressed.

 

We were shown the computer room where donated old computers were being used to good effect and then the tour finale, the art workshop. A selection of the artworks are included below.

 

 

 

As Chris is keen to use sport to educate young people about HIV, we introduced him to Tackle Africa's coaching manual and explained how it could be used. Chris is also a football coach and was delighted to receive the manual and was keen to put it into use. We discussed possibly getting some coaches out to Arusha to run some of the drills and train local coaches on how to use the manual.

For more information about this project please visit their website (www.tekua.com)

 

 

 

e

Charlotte's web........log - part deux with thanks...

So it seems that Kenya can keep me awake! I quiet obviously still “granny nap” to keep myself up to Olympic standards but it’s fair to say that the least amount of training has been completed in the weeks that we have been here! It maybe that in North Kenya I physically couldn’t because of the conditions of the roads, (I mean I know I’m in a third world country but surely in the last 90 years that the car has been around something could have been done to at least smooth it over??? I’ll cease the wingding-must be because of the lack of sleep!!) or the amazing wildlife and scenery that has surrounded me but there is  definitely something about this country that keeps my eyes open!

The projects we have visited have been awe inspiring, with model Africans running the show and adding to my list of most amazing people. It is here in Kenya that I have found worthy causes to hand out the donations that I received from friends and family and it is her that I would like to recognise those special people that have supported myself and the Football Africa cause.

I have to start firstly with my school, Cranford Community College, (brap!brap!brap! Sorry had to!) for their generosity in support and collections by both staff and students. Nairobi took me to St Johns Church where they house and look after orphaned children and a fantastic teacher, Grace, who’s school (Kitui Village Nursery School) had been burnt down. Out of the three classrooms, two were destroyed in the fire and for learning to continue they had to share the one remaining classroom amongst the 200 students. It is here that I thank the Year 9 students for their valiant effort in collecting pens, pencils and calculators that will contribute to the start of a new school. Vanessa Tutt for her large contribution of pens that have been given out along the African roads but that here went to the teachers of the school. Maria Bramwell, Sarah Brackley and Hiruni whom donated football shirts and children’s clothes that were greatly received by the orphans at St Johns Church.

The Simba Maasai Outreach Programme whom had Tackle Africa trained coaches gained much needed cones for their drills, a kind from Susie Finn donation from Susie Finnis, Sports Co-ordinator at Kingston University.

And lastly but by no means least, my last thank you goes to Tony Pike of *Parafricta and my very own father, Chris Kennedy who donated much needed money for Football Africa’s medical needs. I’m sure they’ll both be glad to hear that not only have we benefitted from this donation but we are playing the good deed forward  by donating our remaining supplies (thankfully we haven’t been too sick!) to The Mango Tree, Malawi, where the drugs and medicines can be used to help children whom have lost either one or both their parents to HIV.

Many Thanks to you all!

Charlotte

*Parafricta is a revolutionised material that has been designed to eliminate the effects of bed sores. For more information visit www.parafricta.com .

Hints and Tips for Kenya

Hi Everyone

Here are some handy hints for anyone heading to Kenya in a car...

Don’t even think about driving in Northern Kenya. It will make you very angry at the Kenyan Government.

Go and meet Fatuma Abdikadir in Marsabit who is the head of HODI. You will be astounded by the work she is doing there.

 Be amazed that your car is still going forward after losing shock absorbers, coil suspension and battery on the road from Marsabit to Isiolo.

Get JJ to stop every 20 minutes to charge your car battery with the car he’s driving.

Drive without any lights in the dark as the road has wiped out the power.

Don’t drive without any lights as you will find it to be very stressful.

Swear that you will not be held responsible for what happens to any government official if you meet them that night.

Get to your destination and get bitten to high hell by sand flies. You will feel amazing at this point.

Hug the tarmac road when you find it. You never thought tarmac was so important.

Stay at Jungle Junction in Nairobi. They have a fridge of beer that you can help yourself from. Oh good lord it tastes good after the hell you’ve encountered.

Discover that Nairobi is one big traffic jam.

Seriously everywhere you go. TRAFFIC.

Visit the Maasai people. They’re a real friendly bunch.

Kenyan kids are cheeky. But god love em’ they’re bloody cute too.

Impress the locals with your flamboyant use of the local lingo.

Be bemused when you discover they don’t understand what you’re saying.

Play football with the local Maasai young people. They don’t know how to defend.

Lob a 5ft goalkeeper but still celebrate a wonderfully well taken goal.

Let mechanics in the middle of nowhere fix the suspension on the car for 20 quid.

Don’t bother trying to find a hostel in the middle of nowhere. Go and stay at the biggest house in Kenya owned by a British guy called Richard Muir.

His garden is bigger than my local park. His outside toilet is very disturbing however. Especially in the dark.

Get Ed to order half a cow for £6 to eat for dinner in a truck stop.

Experience the absurdity of watching the Westlife DVD being shown on the TV. Watch the locals sing a long. You will find JJ will want to film all this and that Charlotte will happily sing a long as well.

Ed will not.

Anthony, our local guide to the area, will know all the words. He won’t be ashamed of singing every one of them either.

You will also find that Ed doesn’t appreciate having the Westlife songs sung to him.

Eat fish in Kisumu. Goodness me it tastes good.

Go and visit the Mango Tree charity. Truly amazing stuff.

Be serenaded by the volunteers. It will give you a warm fuzzy feeling.

Play football with a ‘lake’ in the middle of the pitch.

Make sure you never go near the ‘lake’ throughout the duration of the match.

Watch on in amusement as a variety of players enter the lake only to slip over every single time.

Visit the St Francis Youth Project in Kisumu. More amazing stuff happening there.

Play football with the young people with 2 trees situated next to the corner flag on the pitch.

Also appreciate the sandpit near the byline.

And who can forget the small stream running through one of the penalty areas.

Stay with Fatuma and her brothers in Nairobi. They are all ridiculously friendly and generous.

Stay away from the Manchester United v Arsenal match to see the Premier League being won.

 

Cheers

Andy

MYSA, YESSIR.

A couple of weeks before we left the UK Andy and me visited Ben Tegg, who allocates funding for Sports Relief to discuss our trip. Ben had a lot of interesting advice especially regarding organisations using football for change in Africa.

In his opinion a project needs to be set up for the long term and run by local people with a deep understanding of local issues. High-profile European charities backed by Premiership superstars often promise a lot but under deliver because they are often too short term and often ill considered to be of lasting benefit. He gave an example of a project in South Africa sponsored by a big sports brand that handed over expensive sports equipment to slum kids only to have them return bruised and upset a week later, their kit all stolen to sell on.The organisation Ben gave as a model for football related community projects in Africa's MYSA or Mathare Youth Sports Association.

Mathare is a slum in Nairobi and home to hundreds of thousands of people, 70% of which are mothers and children. In response to demand for a football team MYSA set up as a small group in 1987 and have grown to become a top level football club, Mathare Youth FC,  that last year won the Kenyan Premier League and producing a huge contingent of the Kenyan National Team’s squad.  MYSA are now the largest self help youth sports and community organization in Africa and have major projects covering community development issues from HIV awareness, environmental awareness, working with jailed youths to providing photography, music and drama training. They have been nominated for Nobel Peace Prize twice.

We interviewed the senior administrator at MYSA, Steve, second in charge of the whole operation. Steve’s journey was typical of many that worked in MYSA, firstly he started out purely as a footballer, then moved into coaching, an obligation that MYSA place on their players. This meant he got a taste for the administrative side which in turn got him interested in pursuing a career with MYSA.  He was very keen to stress that MYSA’s strength came from onus it placed on people under its umbrella to re-invest in the club and the community.  Top players for the Mathare first team are obligated to do a month’s community work in a year. That could be in anything from coaching to cleaning up litter in the slums.  Can you imagine Ronaldo knocking around Salfordwith a dustpan and brush?

 

Their projects are initiated by issues that surround the Mathare community. Their clean up and environmental project started because they needed a pitch. There was an area of disregarded flatland caked in rubbish which the kids cleaned up. Now all teams playing in the MYSA leagues are required to do clean up work to get 6 bonus points, which contribute to their league standing and without which they can’t win a league.  

MYSA really are the gold standard in community development projects. Their model of using football to incentivise individuals to help the community is being replicated so that other communities can benefit by their example. An impressive organisation, MYSA emphasise how important it is to focus on local and long term solutions for community development. Find out more www.mysakenya.org  

 

Ed

Kendu believe it? A clean sheet on a dirty day!

As I explained in the Kisumu report, rain was very high on the sky’s ‘Things to do’ list and it had taken it’s toll on the pitch we played on in Kendu Bay. This was part of our trip to visit The Mango Tree. It’s a project that looks after over 3500 orphans in the region. The project could triple in size and still not be enough to look after the orphans in that province. Their parents are dying of HIV/AIDS weekly. Daily. The scope of The Mango Tree is admirable. Run in Kenya, by Consolata Kunyada ( An amazing lady) , they are trying to regenerate the whole area. Educating people on agriculture, using crafts to increase revenues and HIV awareness, testing, and counselling. We met volunteers and nurses, some of whom have HIV themselves, but are determined that their area, their province, their children don’t suffer the same fate.

Still, amongst all this, there shines a light. One that welcomed us warmly to Kendu Bay. The Mango Tree had arranged a day of football for us. We were to play two games that day. And they were tough. Big, physical lads booting the ball around on a dreadful pitch. As the pictures illustrate, this pitch had it all. It was muddy, hard, soft, it had a small lake in the corner on the right hand side. People were stacking it left, right, and centre. The tackles were fierce (Fair play to Charlotte she made one of them), the running hard, and the goalies of indeterminate ability. We lost the first game 2-1. Our goal came courtesy of a slightly naughty shove on the keeper by yours truly, with the resultant spill affording Andy an open goal. We’d worked hard and I nearly nodded a late equaliser but ultimately we faced our second defeat of the trip.

The second match was equally brutal and, being played all of 40 minutes after the first, was a gruelling affair. I’d found myself at right back and had a pretty good second half. I was enjoying the physical stuff and came off the pitch pretty pleased with my performance (ahh, the luxury of writing your own reviews) Ed too had been throwing himself into challenges into what had become a midfield of 1, and a war of attrition. 0-0 the final score at Kendu Bay, and I took some solace, as a defender, in finally keeping a clean sheet.

It was a remarkable day. It is a remarkable charity as Andy has written. We can’t thank them enough for their hospitality and we will always remember and support them.

JJ FootballAfrica x

Game1 Line-up: Kennedy 7 Johnson 7 Barnard 8 SUNSTARMAN Howie 8

Game2 Line-up: Johnson 7 SUNSTARMAN Barnard 7 Howie 6

The Mango Tree

It’s quite hard to know where to start when writing about this amazing charity. We were about an hour late to arrive in a small village in the Rachuonyo district of Kenya to meet Consolota Kunyada(the director) and the volunteers who worked for the charity but it didn’t matter. We were greeted by a whole host of smiling faces and then the singing started. We were shepherded to some seats at the side of a football field while the crowd serenaded us with local songs about the Mango Tree and the big man upstairs. It was certainly the best welcome we’d received so far on our journey.

The Mango Tree is a charity that provides orphans with healthcare, education, welfare and emotional support. It was first set up in Kyela in Tanzania in 2004(we will visit there next month) and then nearly 3 years ago Consolota and her husband, Peter, were given the opportunity to help the orphans in this area. The Rachuonyo district has the highest recorded rates of HIV and also the highest orphan rates in Kenya, so the Mango Tree’s help was desperately needed. It is no exaggeration to say that their help is doing incredible things.

Consolata talked to us about the work that is happening to help the orphans and the work that the volunteers are doing. The volunteers are based in a variety of villages and they are the focal points for the children if they have any problems or need help. The charity couldn’t exist without the help of these people, many of whom are living with HIV. To help fund the volunteers, the Mango Tree has set up a soap and detergent making factory. The factory is a local communal hall hired out to the trust for the purpose of making soap/detergent for the community. I can honestly say it was one of the happiest working environments I have ever seen. We were once again greeted by a host of songs (and conga lines) as they walked us through how they make the soap. Also attached to the hall is a VCT centre (Voluntary Counselling and Testing) where people can go confidentially to be tested for HIV. They have also recently set up an arts and crafts centre, where the volunteers are making furniture from water hyacinth. These projects are helping to provide jobs for the volunteers to earn from.

The charity currently funds the education of 3700 orphans in the area from primary school all the way to university. Once they have finished secondary school, the orphans then have to serve their community for one year, helping at local schools or with local farmers before they go to university.  Some of the older orphans have also set up a scheme called the Mango Tree Association with the aim of helping the Mango Tree when they are on holiday from University. They host sports days, extra school lessons and generally act as mentors to the younger orphans.

Here in Kenya, the Mango Tree is separated in to 3 departments; Education, Health and Community Development. The child is registered to the programme by speaking with one of the volunteers in the village. Once the elder of the village has verified that the child is an orphan, they have their photo taken and are given a number. The education department helps to fund the school fees for the orphan. The health department is on hand to help with any sickness or medicine the orphan needs and to educate the orphans on anything health related including diet, HIV awareness and Malaria. The community development department is trying to educate the local communities about more efficient crop techniques and to help them become more self sustainable with their land.

We spent 2 days with Consolata and her team and it was an inspirational experience. We interviewed the people working for the charity, played football with the orphans and visited local schools and their factory. We also visited Consolata’s mum who looks after 20 of the orphans in her home. It was truly a privilege to see such a warm and vibrant community spirit in truly testing circumstances. There is no doubt the Mango Tree is making huge strides in changing the attitudes of local communities to HIV and helping to create a more sustainable future here. They still face huge challenges (48 out of 53 people tested positive for HIV at the VCT centre last week!) and have a lot more work to do but to see what they’ve achieved in such a small space of time is remarkable. They want to expand the area they are working in so they can reach more orphans. To do this they need as much help as possible. I wholly recommend that you visit the website (www.themangotree.org) and read about the work they are doing and what they’re trying to achieve.

Andy

 

 

A week of two halves.

Ahh Kisumu. A great place. However, if during this trip anyone had ventured the opinion that they’d missed the rains of home, then Kisumu gave everyone a less then gentle reminder. When Toto were ‘blessing the rain down on Africa’ then they obviously weren’t staying in a tent.

No sir. It rained like a biggedy-bad boy. But only at night. During the days we found time to visit a great project for Tackle Africa. The St Francis Youth Project are a wonderful group of folks doing their job in the toughest of circumstances. The Nyanza province, of which Kisumu is a part, has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Kenya. 40% of the people have the disease. Half the orphans in Kenya are in this province, their parents lost to the disease.

The job for the project is massive. Thanks to their hard work awareness is higher, more people are being made to confront the disease, more people are taking the test, the sad inevitability of the early attitudes to HIV/AIDS is that more people are failing.

St Francis Youth Project is aiming to stop this. Their aim is to stop the next generation from repeating this pattern. Part of the plan involves football and Tackle Africa specifically. Andy will have talked in greater depth about the work they do. On top of all this they also sorted us out a couple of games of football.

Game 1 was a cracker, 11 a side, and we played really well. Only Howie, Johnson and Barnard ran out for this one. Ably assisted by some local lads, we showed some good stuff. Andy notched his  goals (another hat trick) and also set up three more. He even tracked back into his own half, that man will do anything for a SUNSTARMAN rating. Ed provided great support in midfield. He has really taken to the African technique for tackling. This basically involves charging into a challenge face on and then frantically scrapping away for the ball amongst a cluster of legs. It’s a block challenge plus one. As for me, I set up one of Andy’s goals with a quickly taken free kick over the top and, for fans of sweet Brazillian soccer skills, I also busted out another dragback to school another striker. That this was greeted by howls of derision for the unfortunate opposition player, was sadly as much an indictment of his naivety, as it was an expression of how unlikely they all clearly thought it was that I should have that in my locker.

Game 2 was less so. As I’ll write later, this was to be game 4 in a 5 day period and we were leggy. It was also played with us a man down. Happy that these excuses are enough to explain a 6-3 defeat, let’s move on.

The ref was sh*t too.

JJ FootballAfrica, signing out with an especially long goodbye to annoy Andy, who is sitting waiting to put the photos on x

Game1 Line-up: Johnson 8 Barnard 8 Howie 9 SUNSTARMAN

Game2 Line-up: Johnson 6 Barnard 7 SUNSTARMAN Howie 6

St Francis Youth Project in Kisumu

The St Francis Youth Project is an organisation that helps young people in Kisumu to change the way they live their lives. Kisumu is part of the Nyanza province which has the largest HIV rate in Kenya. The project is separated in to 3 departments; Prevention, Nutrition and Aftercare. It is managed by a man called Julius Misore who oversees the development of each department. We found out about their work because Tackle Africa have been involved with St Francis for a few years as they have been using the coaching manual to educate local football teams about the dangers of HIV and how to prevent it.

We went there to film the work being done and to interview the people involved. We were mainly looked after by Julius Malala who is in charge of the prevention department. He works with a variety of schools, local football clubs and youth clubs to engage young people about HIV education. We got to film a local school using Tackle Africa’s coaching manual to teach their students about HIV. They told us that teenage pregnancy had dropped to 0% since the manual had been used! It was also clear that the students were not only really enjoying the football but also understanding the HIV messages the football drills were designed for. We interviewed the deputy headmaster, who was actively involved in the coaching, and he told us about how the manual had been integrated in to the school system.

We then interviewed the female sports teacher who had originally been trained by Tackle Africa earlier this year. She enthusiastically told us about how effective the manual had been and also spoke about how she wanted to see the manual evolve in the future (they are not allowed to talk to the children about safe sex, so the message is about abstaining).

We then got to film a local football club using Tackle Africa drills as part of their training programme and interviewed a local coach about how he felt the drills were helping his team, both in terms of football skills and also education about HIV. We also played football against his team (twice – match reports attached later) and gave them a bag of our footballs donated by Alive and Kicking.

It was another case of not being there long enough to fully appreciate the scale of the work being done by the project but we are certainly thankful to St Francis for showcasing as much as they could. It was great to see once again how football is being used to engage young people and how it is helping to educate them in changing their lives.

 

Andy

Random trip to Pumwani

In 2006 my sister spent 4 months working for Tearfund in an area of Nairobi called Pumwani. In Swahili, Pumwani literally translates as ‘exhale’ but its meaning is closer to ‘resting place’.  It is situated in an area called Eastlands, in the Starehe constituency. Starehe broadly translates as ‘happiness’.

My sister worked in two school’s in the area. The four months she spent teaching 4-6 yr old’s had a profound effect on her and I was extremely excited to see the place and meet her friends.

Dani was very keen for us to hook up with Gracie, the leader of a community school in the heart of the more deprived area of Pumwani. It was a shack no bigger than half a tennis court and yet it schooled 140 children from the surrounding vicinity. If it did not exist the kids would simply not have access to education. 

My sister taught Pumwani younglings here and was passionate about the work it was doing.  Tragically the school had recently been damaged by a fire (in a suspected arson attack). Dani, eager to understand the extent of the damage, asked to us to see what assistance was required to get the school back to full health.  

One of Dani’s closest friends, Peter, acted as our guide around Pumwani.  At 6ft7 he was the biggest Kenyan we had seen. He was a gentle giant and judging by the amount of people who came to greet him he was clearly something of a hero.

He showed us around the church, and introduced us to Reverend Moses, who welcomed us to worship the following day. An invitation we were unfortunately unable to accept due to our heavy schedule, but it looked liked the holy house really kicked off of a Sunday. Peter showed me where my sister had sat and ‘attempted to sing’. My sister has the heart of an angel but apparently not the voice.

We were shown a school attached to the Church. In the main hall I found my sisters name on the wall alongside the class of ‘06. Peter also pointed out a mural the girls had done, attributing all the untidy bits to my sister.  I felt a great kinship as I looked at the smudged paint lines.  Then bizarrely Peter showed us the room where they all spent a lot of time doing aerobics. The thought of Peter in Lycra punch-dancing to ‘Let’s Get Physical’ made me laugh. 

 

Peter then took us to her friend Joseph’s house which is apparently where Dani used to ‘chillax’, smoking, gambling and drinking hard liquor. It could get quite ugly.  Apparently Dani once lost one poker game too many and threatened to cut up a man with a shard of glass. Obviously that didn’t really happen. It was a prison

shiv.

Joseph was a lovely engaging guy, with an interesting job. He was involved in community theatre group called 4 Change Theatre Group which uses drama as communication tool. By being a ‘mirror of society’ they educate through skits and dramas which they write themselves. More strength to his arm, a genuinely impressive individual.

We walked from St Johns to Gracie’s school. To our uninitiated eyes the area was a slum but apparently Pumwani is regarded as a middle tier area because a) there is water, albeit a solitary tap, and electricity and b) because people were able to purchase their own plots. In true slums such as Kibira, Africa’s biggest slum, made famous in the Constant Gardner and also situated in Nairobi, there is no running water, electricity and people can only own the components of their living. Nevertheless, slum or no, it was a new experience for us.

As already mentioned the school itself was a tin shack with a black board. Due to fire damage in one half of the structure the children were now being taught in one room. Previously both rooms had meant separation of students so primary and pre-school’s had their own room and everyone else occupied a slightly bigger room next to it.  Now one sweltering room had to house 70 kids from 3 -16 with one teacher trying to cater for everyone.  I couldn’t even imagine 70 people fitting in the room never mind trying to get an education.  

Gracie only needs £400 to get this situation rectified. £400 would restructure the second room and provide all the wooden desks blackboard etc that a classroom needs. The juice is definitely worth the squeeze as they say. £400 sorts out 70 children getting an education.  We are going to try to get Gracie this £400, if you want to help please contact us and we can explain more.  

Anyway on the whole it was a privilege to walk in my sisters footsteps for the day.  She clearly left a hell of an impression, which made me really proud. Big up Random, huge love coming your way from Gracie, Peter, Joseph, Winnie and all the others. And me of course.XXX

Ed

Maasai Of The Day.

Our trip to the Maasai region had heralded many things. Tackle Africa drills in action, interesting conversations on the Maasai people and Kenyan politics in general and, of course, night time giraffe stalking.

It also heralded another game for the Football Africa team. With FA regulars Johnson, Barnard and Howie in the team, again joined by fan favourite Neil Evans who was playing his last game before a four match ban (actually visiting the Maasai mara for a while). So, another 11 a side for the gang. The teams were made up of students from the school. This meant we were certainly increasing the average age of the side but with age comes wisdom (apparently) and we were confident that our greater experience (of watching top flight football) would give us the edge.

And so it was. I’m writing this a fair few days after the event and so I have to apologize for the lack of detail in the report. Also, Man Utd have just won the league so I find myself a little bit ‘tired’. I remember us racing into a lead when Andy lobbed a keeper who stood at around 5ft tall. There was a hole in the pitch so big you could comfortably bath in it. I schooled two strikers with a couple of sweet dragbacks( I know?!?), I also came no closer to scoring that elusive first goal.

Truth be told, it was a fairly easy match and we even looked on for our first clean sheet until the opposition introduced some new wonder-kid who helped them score two quick goals. However we quickly sussed this fella out and indeed added two further goals of our own eventually romping home 6-2.

It had been a great experience to stay with the Maasai community. We stayed in an outrageous location on the slope of a valley. There were Giraffes wandering round. Giraffes. Brilliant.

And surprisingly quick.

Lots of Love, especially to Sir Alex, JJ FootballAfrica

Line-up: Johnson 7 Evans 7 Barnard 7 Howie 8 SUNSTARMAN