This week, South African rugby fans relived that 2019 World Cup final with the added insight of Siya Kolisi, his teammates, members of the Springbok management team, and various media personalities.

Thankfully, that was really just a teaser for Chasing the Sun, a six-part documentary series coming our way in August, which promises to “lift the lid” on how the Springboks achieved rugby immortality.

Siya’s backstory is well known to most South Africans – growing up in the Zwide township in Port Elizabeth, starring during his time at Grey PE, and going from party animal to leader with the Stormers and the Springboks.

It’s really no surprise, then, that he’s getting his hands dirty to try and help those in need, reports CNN:

“For me, it’s personal,” said Kolisi, speaking to CNN from Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

“There’s nothing worse than hunger. There’s nothing worse than listening to your stomach before you go to bed and you just hear grumbling. You have nothing to eat, you’ve got no other choice.”

…Growing up in the township of Zwide, just outside Port Elizabeth, bed for Kolisi was a pile of cushions on the living-room floor and finding enough to eat was a daily struggle. It was a life which was, he said, incompatible with social distancing.

“If I went a couple of days without eating I would go to my neighbor and go ask for something,” he said. “Sometimes we live in a house with 10 or 15 people in one room. It’s really hard to have social distancing.”

Determined to make a difference, Siya and his wife, Rachel, brought forward the launch of  The Kolisi Foundation, and have been busy supplying PPE and food parcels to needy members of the Zwide township, which the skipper knows so well.

Rather than simply telling people what to do, without giving a coherent reason (cough, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, cough), Siya has taken a different approach:

“We put in instructions there for the masks – all in Xhosa – on how to put it on … But the most important is this: if you want people to stay home, tell them why. You can’t just tell someone to stay home and not give them anything.”

…”I’m not disadvantaged anymore and I don’t see myself like that,” he said. “But I know what it feels like. What I’m trying to say is you don’t have to come from there to be able to give back. There’s no better feeling than helping somebody else.”

There has still been some downtime spent at home, and you’ll be pleased to know that Rachel is just like the rest of us.

If a repeat of the Rugby World Cup final is one, you watch it:

…the final was recently re-run on TV, and in the Kolisi home there was no dispute over the remote that night — Kolisi’s wife made everyone watch the match.

“We watched it all over again and got all the goose bumps all over again,” she said. “When Siya was playing like you don’t see the people and everything that’s going on.”

Rules are rules. If you flip on the TV and the game is only 20 minutes in, it’s a roughly 54-minute wait until Cheslin’s magic.

Like most of us, Siya is looking forward to getting back to what he does best, but there are other priorities to take care of, first.

“The most important thing is make sure everybody’s safe and protected,” he said. “Then we can get through this together. It doesn’t matter who you are right now. We all want to fight this thing together and we need to stand united together as humanity.”

True that.

You can find more on The Kolisi Foundation here.

PS – Siya, have a word in Dlamini-Zuma’s ear, man, and ask her to sort herself out.

[source:cnn]