For a 3 week period in April 2010 I am volunteering to work with the award winning charity ‘Coaches Across Continents’ in Kenya. The charity helps severely under-privileged children and teenagers develop the life skills which can help them to break out of the vicious downward spiral of poverty, disease, crime, prejudice and gender inequity which sees their life chances severely restricted from birth.
Away from its tourist friendly centres, Kenya has large populations suffering from extreme poverty and where HIV/AIDS has ravaged families and left countless children orphaned and responsible for younger siblings. Family structures are destroyed which removes the security, guidance and adult role-models that families provide. Those children - and particularly the girls, are then vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, whilst boys are drawn into crime, activities and behaviour which perpetuate the problems which have disadvantaged them in the first place. Many children in communities across Kenya and the rest of Africa have ‘childhoods’ most of us would find difficult to comprehend.
Coaches Across Continents works with existing charities already established in the poorest of communities to provide an extra level of help and learning. This extra help is specifically delivered through the medium of PLAY, and particularly through football. Football is an obsession across much of Africa and children will often respond far more positively to programmes based upon play and sport than through school. Coaches Across Continents delivers specially designed courses which help teach children to understand the importance of the choices they can take - particularly in respect to personal health, dealing with conflict and community co-operation. It tries to highlight options open to children they might not even realise they have, but will help them to healthier, safer and happier lives!. It is not about making the children better football players (although that may be the case) but about making vitally important learning fun in what are otherwise very difficult lives!
In parallel to engaging directly with young people, Coaches Across Continents teaches and provides on-going support to local leaders, teachers and coaches so that they can then deliver the games, exercises and lessons themselves. This enables the programme of learning to continue after the initial sessions by the visiting coaches have ended, ensuring those benefits are sustained – a crucial objective of the charity’s work.
I will be one of a small team managing and delivering the programme to the children and teenagers of a small community in western Kenya, and then again in Kibera, Nairobi, one of the largest and most deprived slum communities in Africa. We expect to be running sessions which reach out and directly benefit several hundred poverty stricken children over the three week period.
Im sure this will present me with a great physical and emotional challenge, but is one I am eager to confront and succeed in so that I can help in a small way to bring some fun, learning and lasting benefit to children who may otherwise have little to look forward to in life.
I would be eternally grateful if you would consider making a donation towards this endeavour through this website. Any contribution would help the charity reach more children and send coaches to countries and communities which are are requesting its help. For those of you who do donate, I will forward a link to my blog which I will be keeping on the trip, and hopefully show you how your donation has been put to fantastic use!
