Visa to send five Kenyan kids to AFCON as player escorts

The 2019 African Cup of Nations sponsors, Visa, has started a two-week campaign aimed at selecting five children aged 6-10, both male and female from Kenya who will take part in the forthcoming African Championships as player escorts.

The initiative which has been going on across African countries will see Kenyans nominate five children out of the 1100 children with amazing and inspirational stories to escort Harambee Stars to the competition penciled to run in Egypt from June 21 to July 19.

“We want to bring back to life our sponsorship together with football community, we are allowing kids to travel to Egypt to be players’ escorts and travel alongside talented players in the continent with their players being proud of the moment, and we as a brand we focus on nurturing talent,’ Visa Country Manager, Victor Ndlovu said in a statement on Tuesday.

Visa has a panel of five judges from Kenya who have inspiring stories to help in the selection process, this include former Harambee Stars coach Jacob Mulee, comedian Felix Oduor ( Jalang’o), gospel artist Kambua Manundu and business executive Kim Ndiragu.

The judges will pick the final five escorts from seven kids who will have been nominated by the public in the next two weeks.

The five will join Lawrence Masira who has already been chosen by Visa to escorts the national team to Egypt. Masira was identified by Royal Media Services journalist Eric Njiru, who toke a photo of the young boy in a makeshift polythene jersey inscribed with the name of Arsenal play-maker Oezil Mesut at the back.

The selection process is open to both gender and does not have to be inspired be football inspired by but inspiring.