Pretoria — South African National Parks (SANParks) has teamed up with the Dreamfields Project to merge conservation and soccer for the benefit of young people in communities around the national parks.

Kicking off on Saturday, school teams from communities on the borders of the world-renowned Kruger National Park will participate in a series of "Wild About Soccer" tournaments culminating in a final tournament on 4 October in Skukuza.

Wild About Soccer is a three-year partnership between Dreamfields, SANParks and the People and Conservation unit. It is aimed at engaging young people at the level of their passion - football.

Every tournament within this project will be an opportunity to educate young people about conservation and the environment.

Dr David Mabunda, Chief Executive Officer of SANParks said: "The best way to get young people to understand and develop respect for the environment in conservation areas is to start by making positive and visible changes in the environments where they live."

John Perlman, founder of the DreamFields Project sees the partnership with SANParks as a way of changing the social make up in marginalised communities.

Wild About Soccer is not just about the beautiful game, said Mr Perlman, it is about using sport as means of building knowledge about, and respect for, something worth preserving - our natural heritage.

Dreamfields will provide also packs containing a complete soccer kit to the participating schools for continued development of their learners through the game of soccer.

"As a start, we will be handing out DreamBags filled with soccer kits for tournaments in rural communities, but our long term goal is to help fix up some fields in villages bordering on our parks," said Mr Perlman.