Walking a street in Tanzania, our late founder, Jim Cogan OBE, saw a man on the side of a road stitching a ball, stopped to talk to him and the concept for Alive & Kicking was born. In 2004 Jim travelled to Kenya with the vision of one charity combining three objectives - balls for kids, jobs for adults and health awareness through sport. Martin Barnard, our first Kenyan MD, helped Jim realise his vision, and within a year Alive & Kicking Kenya was stitching balls for UEFA.

In 2005 UEFA ordered 81,000 balls from Alive & Kicking Kenya for distribution across Africa. The contract established A&K Kenya, allowing Alive & Kicking to expand. In 2007 A&K Zambia was born, using space on Zambeef's leather site in Lusaka. In September 2007, Jim Cogan died on a flight back to London from Nairobi. Alive & Kicking was flung into uncertainty, but under the stewardship of the then Chairman of Trustees, James Flecker, the enterprise survived and grew.

After training from A&K Kenya's stitchers, A&K South Africa began stitching balls in 2008 in Wellington. Together the three stitching centres have stitched over 250,000 balls, affecting millions of children. In July 2009 conditions for production in South Africa proved too challenging and its equipment was moved to A&K Zambia where capacity has increased. In its time A&K South Africa provided invaluable employment, health awareness and balls for children, work which is being continued from A&K Kenya and Zambia.