The Eritrean Independence day celebrations are happening on Wednesday, 24th May 2023 marking 32 years since the country got her independence from Ethiopia.
For this day, all Eritreans in Diaspora across the world embrace the celebrations in a special way as it reminds them of their home and national pride.
Eritreans in Kampala in particular, celebrate the day by participating in a football tournament known as “Eritrean Independence Cup” in collaboration with the Eritrean Community.
As East Africa Medical Center, it has always been our pride to promote good health, encourage community engagement, capacity and team building for collective societal growth.
We were therefore pleased to the official sponsor of the winning team of this second edition of the amazing tournament where 16 teams were battling for the number one spot. The tournament took almost 4 weeks with a total of 27 games played.
“East Africa Medical Center has been sponsoring one of the teams since last year, and we are very happy with the performance this year in general. We would like to thank all the organizers and other participants in this competition and hope for much better next year.” – Mr. Abiselom Bahta, General Manager.
Team Denden were finally the champions of the tournament after beating Team Warsay 5:2 goals in a game held at Lugogo stadium on Monday, 22nd May 2023.
“We have worked together with this team for two years and now we have been successful from the first game to the end of this tournament. In today’s final game, we led 2:0 goals for the first 15 minutes and worked hard in the middle of the field and sent a message to everyone to play well together and we won 5:2 goals.” – Michael Aklilu, Denden team coach.
Mr. Noah Iyasu, the captain of Team Denden pointed out the importance of the tournament and how they managed to win the finals against the defending champions.
“This tournament is geared towards Independence Day celebrations and is very good for morale boosting and instilling hope among people.
The team that we are played today is a strong team that emerged champion last year, but we came prepared to win. Of course, we had some challenges at the beginning of the tournament, but our sponsors quickly filled those gaps. And today, here we are as the champions!” – he said
Mr. Samuel Tesfay (Agent) working as a coach at Agent Soccer Academy in Kampala, Uganda appreciated the organizers, sponsors, supporters and all stakeholders of this tournament.
“It is very nice that many young people have come to these finals. It is very exciting as these players from Agent Soccer Academy enjoyed to participate,” – he said.
As expected, the players were very grateful concerning the whole management, organization and sponsorship of the tournament as follows:
1. Noah Iyasu, Eritrean
“I was personally awarded the best defender of the tournament and overall; 5 people from our team including me were awarded the best. I would like to thank all our sponsors, especially East Africa Medical Center, on behalf of my team for the support to be the champions todaY.”
2. Tomas Mengesha, Eritrean
“I was awarded the best player of the tournament in the Independence Cup tournament organized by the Eritrean Community and I thank all my fellow players and organizers.”
3. Yonas Tewolde, Eritrean
“I have been playing for Denden in the recent tournament organized by the Eritrean Community. I would like to thank all our supporters in general and the East Africa Medical Center in particular.”