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Blow a Kuduzela for 2010

Johannesburg - FIFA 2010 World Cup fans will have a new instrument to blow in support of their favourite football teams next year, a press briefing in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

The Kuduzela, a new wind instrument shaped like a kudu horn, was unveiled as a football icon that would be used for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and other sporting events in South Africa.

The initiative was a joint effort by First National Bank, the SA National Parks (SANParks), and the Kudu-Kudu Manufacturing plant.

SANParks chief executive David Mabunda said they believed the icon would become synonymous with football and other sports in South Africa. The kudu horn is used as an instrument to call people together for gatherings, or for battle.

"Now the Kuduzela will fulfil the same role.

"The Kuduzela will call all South Africans, international guests and soccer fans to South Africa for what is set to be a spectacular tournament in 2010 and appropriately it will be calling the ‘warring parties’ to the symbolic battlefield of soccer."

The Kudu horn, he said, emits a sound that some have called the ‘true sound of the savanna’.

"However the Kuduzela, up close and solitary, sounds like a trumpeting elephant and en masse the sound is more like a massive herd of elephants trumpeting and when there's action near the goal mouth you will hear the elephants going really crazy," said Mabunda.

A percentage of the manufacturing cost of the Kuduzela would go to a conservation project "Kids in Parks".

FNB chief executive officer Michael Jordaan said it was evident that South Africa was capable of hosting "amazing" international events, as displayed in the recent FIFA Confederations Cup 2009.

"The Kuduzela will not only give visitors a South African experience but a truly African experience as well," he said in a statement.

The Vereeniging-based Kudu Kudu plant where the Kuduzela is being produced, also manufactures injection moulded vehicle parts.

"However, the downturn in the economy and the subsequent slowdown in vehicle production, led the owners of the plant to look for innovative ways to keep the plant operational and their staff employed," said Jordaan.

"Through innovation and lateral thinking, a section of the plant was adapted and a new business established to manufacture the Kuduzela, using as much recyclable plastic as possible."

Jordaan said that in the tripartite contract between the three parties, FNB had ensured that 6.24 percent of the cost of every Kuduzela produced would be contributed to SANParks for the "Kids in Parks" project .

"This will equate to more than R600 000 from the bank’s order alone," he explained.

He believed the kuduzela would take "pride of place" in many South African homes, and would be the cornerstone of future South African celebrations.
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