In Africa, netball is the biggest female participation sport. The sport has been seen huge growth on the continent over the years.
Cape Town will be the proud host city of 16 nations for the 10-day tournament.

Netball World Cup 2023, are you ready?

Gwijo Squad is a group of sports fanatics, young and old, who are connected by the love of igwijo – traditional South African singing that is synonymous with coming-of-age celebrations, weddings, struggle and liberation movements, as well as sports events. If you have ever attended a KwaZulu-Natal netball league match, you will recognise that igwijo is synonymous with the sport.
Spectators can be heard belting out Masambe Nono, in an effort to motivate their team, through song.
Gwijo Squad, intends to bring this unique flavour of spectatorship to the world stage, and plan to do this at the Netball World Cup in 2023, on home soil, in Cape Town!

“It is an exciting time for netball right now. Our sport is growing in popularity at an unprecedented rate throughout the world,” INF President, Honourable Molly Rhone said.

The preparations for the Netball World Cup are well-underway, despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Being able to support the SPAR Proteas in the stands, has been a big goal for the Gwijo Squad, as netball is one of our key sports identified (together with rugby and cricket). But due to matches not being hosted in South Africa and the pandemic also getting in the way, we can finally cement the dates and work towards showing our full support to the ladies in green and gold,” says Nande Macingwane, Gwijo Squad committee member.

Planning has started

Gwijo Squad’s plans to attend the tournament in Cape Town have started. The supporters club which is filled with sports fanatics will head to Cape Town for four days to catch the ladies in action.
The members have set up a financial saving system to give themselves enough time to raise the funds needed to be comfortably accommodated in Cape Town.
There will also be fundraising drives put in place to help raise some funds as well as approaching potential brands for sponsorships.

Gwijo Squad can’t wait to be part of this amazing experience and tick it off your bucket list – Netball World Cup 2023, in Cape Town, be ready!

Book your spot TODAY and don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime trip.

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Our 2021 virtual activities

Netball World Cup 2023 with Gwijo Squad

The Netball World Cup will be hosted in Cape Town in 2023 and we will be supporting the Protea ladies, in the Mother City.
It’s going to be a vibe.
The travel prices have been finalised.
We will start an 18-month payment plan in March in order to give those that want to attend enough time to raise the necessary funds.
The final amount will include*:
– Arena ticket
– Return flights (from Johannesburg only)
– Accommodation
– Transport to and from the airport
– Special edition travel kit
All will be outlined once we open up the debit order system.
There will be an option for arena ticket only for those that will not be coming from Johannesburg.

The Great Gwijo Squad Online Quiz

The Great Gwijo Squad Online Quiz is back!
We have been inundated with requests to continue this family-friendly virtual quiz.

The online quiz is a great way for you and your family and friends to have tons of fun while in lockdown. You can even form a team with friends in other cities and even a different country.
It is fun and there is tons of banter in the comments section.
We hosted three online quizzes in 2020, with special guests such as Temba Bavuma, Makhaya Ntini, Babalwa Latsha, Karla Pretorius, Joel Stransky, Monde Zondeki, Kaunda Ntunja and Dumisani Chauke just to name a few.
The views from the quizzes are over 1 000, with over 30 teams that have participated in the quiz.
The quiz consists of general knowledge, picture rounds, music rounds and the most loved category: Girls school and Boys school trivia.

It’s BINGO night time!

A Gwijo Squad first… Bingo Night!

With lockdown continuing and the committee eager to keep the members active (virtually), we will be hosting a Bingo Night for everyone on Zoom.
The event is completely free and you’ll need to register in order to receive your bingo cards.
Bingo is super fun and can be played as one-player or as a team.

We hope that you can join us on Bingo Night on Friday 23 April at 8pm.
Register yourself or your team in order to get your special bingo cards.

Fitness with Gwijo Squad

Fitness means different things to different people, especially during the recent lockdown months.

Let’s have a challenge where everyone can get involved in the comfort of their neighbourhood and gym.
We present to you… Fitness with Gwijo Squad.
All you need is to download the Strava app and join the challenges.
All the running or walking will start in March and your target is to run/walk 100km within the month.
Tackling as much any kilometres as you can each day and by the end of the month, you’ll need to have done the full 100km.
Interact with fellow fitness members (and non-members too).
Share exercise playlists.
Share stretching tips and get the little humans involved too. It’s fun for the whole family!

You’ll get to tag us and use #FitnessWithGwijoSquad #GwijoSquad100 on Twitter to see who else is part of the challenge!

The Fitness with Gwijo Squad challenge/group will be available to join on the Strava app on 1 March 2021.

It’s going to be a jam-packed first half of the year and we are itching to get started with our virtual activities for 2021.

The post Gwijo Squad’s virtual activities for 2021 appeared first on Gwijo Squad.

Farewell family

As individuals within the Gwijo Squad community, we have all individually experienced loss of friends and family, but as a collective with a purpose, COVID-19 had dealt us a few telling blows.
The loss of two giants of South African rugby, Kaunda Ntunja and Monde Tabata, has made the country’s game, the black rugby community, and indeed the Gwijo Squad immeasurably poorer.

In their own unique way these men used their platforms to advance the development and inclusivity of South African rugby, they advanced the rise to prominence of black rugby, and played direct roles in opening doors for and amplifying the Gwijo Squad as they believed in the importance of the movement to bring igwijo into the mainstream of the South African game.
Many within the squad had personal relationships with these gentlemen and our hearts will bear the scars of 2020’s wounds forever.

What we got up to in 2020

Our year got off as planned with a football match with the Barmy Army, who were in South Africa to support the English cricket team who were playing the Proteas.
The football match churned some attention from the media and we had quite a few of our members either take to the field or cheer on the team from the stands at Pirates Club. The visitors were a bit better than the Squad and the victory was celebrated with a few cold ones at the pub after the official floating trophy was handed over.
Our presence was felt at the Wanderers Stadium, in support of the Proteas, during the Test match and of course, the One Day International (the ever-popular Pink Day) against England.
We worked with Standard Bank on the ODI and assisted with one of their initiatives with youngsters and the development of cricket.
Alas, this was to be our final in-person gathering as the Squad in the year of 2020.

It has been an (almost) entire year of not being able to gather to do what it is that we, as a group, love to do.
A special word of gratitude must go to Nondwe Maqubela, whose online quiz nights have carried us through the darkest times of our lockdown.
We managed to host three live-streamed quizzes with special guests such as Temba Bavuma, Dumisani Chauke, Joel Stransky, Karla Pretorius, Babalwa Latsha, Monde Zondeki, and Gcobani Bobo – just to name a few.
The trivia ranged from general knowledge, picture rounds, a special round of boys and girls schools trivia as well as a jam-packed music round.
You never know, we may host a few more in 2021 for all our members and friends.

It has been a year of virtual interaction and igwijo has been no different with us being involved in a number of exciting initiatives over the year that we contributed virtually to.

At the beginning stages of lockdown, we did a special collaboration with Engen together with Hlubi The Twin. The message we drove was for everyone to wash their hands and adhere to the social distancing instructions from our government.

Partnering with a long-time friend of the Gwijo Squad, Mandisi Dyantyis, in an effort to keep the conversation of gender-based violence going, and highlighted the struggles that women go through in South Africa. The reception of the project from the public and the mainstream media was absolutely amazing which signalled that the initiative had served its intended purpose.

One of the most entertaining virtual collaboration that we did, was with Klipdrift and is available on YouTube, titled “Unklipped: Gwijo Squad”, which I recommend, and the follow-up titled “Lockdown Chillas – The Gwijo Squad”, with about 400,000 combined views and counting.

Later in the year, in an effort to contribute to keeping the conversation around gender-based violence going, we decided to continue on the same vein and facilitate a conversation amongst some of our members to discuss some thorny issues and questions to advance the sophistication and understanding around the GBV conversation.
We had two teams which consisted of members and also friends of the Gwijo Squad, to unpack the conversations. You can watch both ‘In discussion with’ on our ever-growing YouTube channel.
Check it out and let us know what you think.

Chasing the Sun

The Chasing The Sun documentary was a welcome reminder of our journey with the Springboks under Siya Kolisi’s tenure and a year since one of our finest hours in the gathering for the Rugby World Cup Final at the Sandton Convention Centre.
It highlighted the reality that, amongst all that we are doing, what we all really want to do is to be able to sing together.
Just prior to the release of the documentary, we had taken the opportunity to embark on a special project that we have intended on doing for some time, and that was to get into a recording studio and make some of our favourite gwijo available to digital music platforms.
We are pleased to say that that process is also in its final stages and further details on the availability of the recordings will follow very shortly.

Upcoming events in 2021 and beyond

But what of the physical presence of Gwijo Squad at upcoming events?
Well, asilelanga.
After lengthy deliberation and attempts to get Gwijo Squad into the stadium for the 2021 British and Irish Lions tour, we were put in a position where we had a very difficult decision to make.
Essentially, we were pushing to be able to block buy tickets but there was no guarantee that the tickets that we booked would be together in a block to allow us to be together as Gwijo Squad. It was decided that our being able to sing together was more important than being inside the stadium and it was thus more worthwhile for us to organise ourselves a viewing venue and create a similar experience as we did for some of the 2019 Rugby World Cup matches including the final.
We will keep the Gwijo Squad community abreast of developments especially as the B&I Lions Tour approaches.

A little further in the horizon, there are two major events that we have identified as Gwijo Squad targets – namely the  2023 Netball World Cup in Cape Town and 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.
The committee has been hard at work putting the costings and logistics together for these 2 events to allow for us to break the costs up into monthly payments as we have done for all of our previous stadium trips.
We will be looking to launch these two initiatives in March 2021 for our members to start saving towards a really big year in 2023.

From the Gwijo Squad committee, 2021 has dragged us all over the tumult of a pandemic that has not only taken lives but thrown livelihoods into disarray.
In spite of all this, and however difficult our own circumstances currently are, we can be grateful for still being here and having a future that promises better days.
The final verse of hymn 126 of in the Xhosa Methodist hymnal starts: “Vuyani! Vuyani! Vuyani! Mabandla asesemhlabeni. Bongani! Bongani! Bongani! Nje ngabasebungcwaliseni.”
The lyrics, that remind those of us who are still on earth to be grateful for the blessing of life, has never been more apt and poignant.
We look forward to singing and celebrating together again in the future until then, wear your masks, wash your hands, keep your distance, and stay safe.

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