The Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) is a community development organization that uses sports to engender broad socio-economic development, while also effecting positive social change. Founded in 1987 in the Mathare area of Nairobi, home to some of Africa’s largest and poorest slums, MYSA pioneered the linking of sports with social improvement and community development activities such as slum garbage cleanups, environmental improvement and HIV/AIDs prevention. Twenty years on, it is now the largest self-help youth sports and community service organization in Africa and is recognized as an example of excellence within the sport and development world. Today, the organization continues to use sports activities, particularly football, as an innovative and effective way to get youth involved in helping themselves and their communities. In addition, over the years the organization has expanded its activities to include other sports; arts and culture, health education, photography youth offender repatriation programme and even community libraries. There are 16 active MYSA zones throughout the Mathare Valley and neighboring slums, and the organization has also grown to include projects in the Kakuma refugee camp in northwest Kenya as well as in Botswana, Tanzania, Sudan and Uganda. In total, the organization has directly impacted over 200,000 young people.