July 2nd, 2010

Coaches across Continents have accepted a unique challenge in partnering with Straight Talk, which works with adolescents in the community to talk about issues like HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy and marriage, and sexual exploitation. Sexual exploitation is a big problem in Busia, since it is a border town and has a very transient population. Many women and girls in Busia are sex workers – some by choice and some by force. The head of Straight Talk in the region is an amazing young man named Bashir, who has basically committed his life to the welfare of the young people in Busia.

The broad objective of STF is to contribute to the improved mental, social and physical development of Ugandan adolescents (10-19) and young adults (20-24). The programme also aims to keep its audience safe from HIV/STD infection and early pregnancy and to manage challenging circumstances such as conflict and deprivation.

More specifically, Straight Talk Foundation aims, through its communications projects, to increase the understanding of adolescence, sexuality and reproductive health, and to promote the adoption of safer sex practices. The foundation also aims at helping adolescents acquire the necessary life skills and grasp of child and human rights to make the passage through adolescence safely.

Coaches Anna, Grace, JB and Rich are using the partnership and soccer to work with teenagers and teachers in 16 schools in the region to reinforce the Straight Talk messages.  All four coaches  have worked hard to adapt to the needs of Busia, a town with a high percentage of sex workers, HIV and teen pregnancy.

Each day our program works with 2 schools and over the course of the 8 weeks, each school receives 5 new sessions that deal with issues like health and wellness, female empowerment, HIV, conflict resolution and fun. This is the first time that the schools in Busia have used sport for social development and the District Education Officer sent a letter to all local schools requesting that they all take part.  There has been a fantastic response from headmasters and teachers to ensure the success of this new program and often our coaches work with 150 children while another 200 watch and learn from the sidelines.

“Most governments, countries and communities do not understand how sport for social development should be part of all educational programs.  The Straight Talk program have embraced the power of football for change and thousands of children in their program are now having fun while they learn.  It is certainly a challenging program for our coaches as they work with thousands of children but this type of outreach will have a sustainable impact on a community desperate for behavioural change in their young people”  Coach Anna.

Check out stories from our coaches in Uganda at our Coaches Blogs

Posted by Coach Anna

I’m gonna miss this beautiful face.

We had done a few sessions with the Straight Talk schools before they left, and we continued with our work once they went. Always the same, never changes. Our first week of sessions focused on teaching the kids about choices they can make to be healthy and strong throughout their lives. These kids have so many things going against them, but if they can work to keep their bodies strong, then they have more than a fighting chance.

One of the kids letting loose during the Circle of Friends!

While I was still in Busia, we worked with about ten schools. Although we played the same games with each school group, every session was different. When you are doing football for development, you find very quickly that every session offers a different opportunity to talk about what is relevant to a particular group of kids. That was definitely the case in Busia, where sometimes we working with young kids, sometimes older kids, sometimes boys, sometimes girls, sometimes footballers, sometimes not, and the list goes on and on.

One thing that never changes – the big smiles on the children’s faces.

We had some schools that were very receptive to the games and were eager to work with us right from the get-go, and other schools where the sessions were on the verge of disaster at one point or another. I think my favorite day was when we walked about 2 or 3 miles to our morning session, did the session for an hour or so with over 100 kids, walked 2 miles back to town, had fish and chips at the community snack pub, tried to get on the internet unsuccessfully for a couple hours, walked a mile or two to our afternoon session (a walk which took us by a lovely pit filled with slaughtered goat guts and blood – probably the nastiest thing I have EVER seen/smelled in my life – oh and it was 20 yards from a school), almost had to stop the session 20 minutes in because of how unenthused the kids were, and then ended up having one of the best sessions ever. It was a long and hard day, but very fulfilling in the end!

Our biggest problem doing the sessions in Busia was that we were supposed to have 40 or fewer kids every time (mostly for safety reasons), but it usually ended up being closer to 80 because once we would start, every kid in sight wanted to join. You would think it would be somewhat easy to regulate that, but you would think WRONG. Since all the kids were in school with the same uniform on, we couldn’t figure out which ones were supposed to be there and which ones weren’t.

Most of the 100 or so kids chasing JB during Ronaldo tag.

Unfortunately, at some of the schools where we had issues with numbers, some of the teachers would beat the kids back with sticks…NOT good. It’s one of those things where you can’t disagree more with something, but there’s nothing you can do to actually stop it because it is a culturally acceptable practice. At one point, JB asked a guy to stop and the guy agreed before immediately hitting another child. UGH. Anyways, we never had any control over the numbers, no matter how much we insisted on the 40 person limit.

We went a little over the 40-kid limit in this session…

On my last day in Busia, we had a session at Dabani Girls School, a boarding school just outside Busia town. As we were waiting down at the playing field, we could do nothing but laugh and shake our heads as a steady stream of girls just kept coming down the hill. I think we must have had around 150 girls in that session, and somehow it worked. A lot of times we have a hard time getting the girls to participate because they are embarrassed or don’t want to exercise, but this group was really into after getting over their initial reservations.

Girls ROCK.

I think they were the most intelligent group of kids I worked with in Busia – they were answering all of our questions with ease and picked up all of the drills very quickly. It was a great way to end my work with CaC, pulling out an extremely effective session with 150 of the future female leaders of Uganda.

On my last night in Busia, we went out to town to watch the USA-England game. World Cup fever is crazy everywhere in Africa, including the small border town of Busia. I went to the Community Snack Pub with Rich, JB, and Jess, one of the six American students volunteering at New Hope this summer. So we had three Americans and one Englishman – a perfect ratio in my mind. As if JB and Rich don’t argue enough already (they are basically like an old married couple that bickers more than the average old married couple), the game provided an excellent platform for some incredibly intelligent debate. The American legion (including myself) was making quite a spectacle, cheering and chanting in the small “pub,” where our group was joined by several Ugandans who were mostly pulling for England. When England scored 4 minutes into the game, Rich was quite unsportsmanlike – cheering, pointing down at us, exclaiming things like “FOUR minutes, HA,” and even sending me a lovely text message that read “1-0.” I’m not gonna lie, we felt a little deflated, but like true Americans we were resilient and rose up to the challenge before us. Clint Dempsey fired an excellent albeit completely savable shot that somehow trickled past Robert Green, and WE WERE BACK IN IT. Naturally, the American legion stood up, cheered loudly, pointed in Rich’s face, and someone who shall remain unnamed (initials ALR) sent a text message to Rich that read “1-1.” The rest of the game was thoroughly enjoyable and very exciting in stretches, especially when Jozy Altidore hit the post and Tim Howard made countless saves in the last ten minutes (resulting in 19203761 near heart attacks for me). The game ended 1-1 and Howard was named Man of the Match, although I think it was equally deserved by Robert Green for his much appreciated gift. The night was another great experience watching football in Africa…you just can’t beat it.

The next morning I was scheduled to leave on a bus to Nairobi at 10:30 am. Ken offered to take me to the bus station, so I was hoping to leave around 9:30 since I had to go through customs first. Well, Ken and his wife had to take their son to the medical clinic that morning but said they would be back. Ken was unreachable until 10:15, at which point I was freaking out about time and about the fact that my shoes had mysteriously disappeared. Both problems were solved when I finally got Ken on the phone and he walked through the door 5 minutes later wearing my shoes. I said goodbye to my other two musketeers, Rich and JB, and then headed off with Ken and Susan to the border.

A typical Busia road scene.

We went through customs without much hassle (my Kenyan visa was still good for a few more days so I didn’t have to pay anything), and then walked across to the Akamba bus station, arriving around 11. I walked up to the counter and asked the guy if the the Nairobi bus was still there and he told me I was late. So I almost died on the spot because I thought I had missed the first ever ON TIME bus in Africa…until I asked again if the bus was still there and he then responded “Yes, it’s just over there.” WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST SAY THAT THE FIRST TIME???? So I got on the bus and kissed Busia goodbye, as the street kids were yelling at me through the window asking for my money and my soda.

Although I’m back in Nairobi now, I’m really excited about the potential impact that our CaC program with New Hope and Straight Talk can have on the community of Busia.

Bashir, me, Rich, and JB reppin’ Straight Talk.

Clearly, the kids there are facing some really serious issues and I think that football can be an incredibly effective tool to teach them about the CHOICES they have in their lives and keep them from becoming just another statistic. It was a new experience for me to be leading a CaC program, but I am really happy with how the program is shaping up and I feel confident leaving the program in the capable hands of Harvard’s finest football/debate duo of all time, Richard Smith and John Bryant.

Rich and JB with a group of kids.

As long as they don’t die from inadequate levels of meat consumption (the meals provided at the house are quite starchy and not so proteiny), I think they are going to leave a lasting mark on Busia…and most certainly come away with something in return.

To donate to CaC’s work in Africa, please click here!

To see more pictures from Busia, please check out the following links!

Busia 1

Busia 2

Busia 3

It has been a few months since my last post so I wanted to catch you up on my pre-trip planning for Tanzania.  No I haven’t gone yet!  In case you forgot my trip is not until late August into September.  There is a lot to do and plan as getting to Africa is no small task.  Since there is no trip coordinator, no travel agent, and no pre-trip planning handbook I have spent a lot of time on the internet investigating and learning.  Fortunately, I have had several months to gradually chip away at it all.  I’ve also been calling and emailing lots of friends who have gone to Africa to get as much insight as possible.

Christian Aviza – Coaches Across Continents volunteer who spent last summer working in Kigoma, Tanzania where I will be (as well as other locations)

Lorrie Fair – UNC ’96-99, US-WNT – www.thekickabout.org

Ashley Riggs – UNC ’91-95 – Summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Anna Rodenbough – UNC ’05-’08 – www.africa2010orbust.blogspot.com

Sonja Trojak France – UNC ’92-‘95 – visited Kibera slums in Kenya

See the Tarheel connection?!?!  Lorrie and Anna are actually both in Africa as we speak.  So check out their blogs!  They are both doing amazing work all over Africa and I am learning a TON from their adventures. 

MEDICAL PREP – Malaria is just one of the many health risks with traveling to Africa.  There are plenty of other diseases, parasites, bacteria, etc to be aware of.  It’s been quite a while since I have been immunized thus I had a lot of catching up to do.  There is a long list of health concerns when traveling to Tanzania, so I chose to immunize against the ones that I felt had the highest risk: Yellow Fever, typhoid, Hepatitis A&B, meningitis, and an adult polio booster.  In addition I will be taking anti-malaria drugs and have an anti-diarrheal on hand should I have that issue.  From what I have been told apparently no matter how careful you are about not drinking the water, not using ice, and not eating  fruit or veggies washed in the water it is still hard to avoid nasty bouts of diarrhea.  Surprisingly the UNC Travel Clinic allowed me to get all my shots in one day!  Certainly more convenient, but I would have expected that they would have recommended spacing out the shots so as not to overwhelm my immune system?!?!  Instead I left feeling much like a pincushion. 

In the process of investigating about the health risks and getting immunized I learned some staggering and shocking facts on the diseases:

• HIV/AIDs is estimated to be present in 6% of the adult population of Tanzania, putting it in the top tier of all countries.
• Tuberculosis is common in all developing countries.  However, Tanzania has a prevalence of over 100 cases per 100,000 population, the highest WHO (World Health Organization) risk category.
• The parasitic disease malaria is responsible for a staggering 1 million+ deaths per year.  The majority are children under the age of five.  A child dies every 30 seconds from malaria.  This death rate can be DRASTICALLY reduced with the simple use of a $10 mosquito net, which many Africans do not have. Today, 90 per cent of malaria cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa.  This would be why I will be traveling with my own mosquito net, using lots of bug spray, and taking my malaria drugs!
• Yellow fever, a viral disease that occurs primarily in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa and South America, kills 30,000 each year.  The virus is transmitted most often through the bite of the female Aedes aegypti mosquito. Once controlled fairly well by widespread vaccination and mosquito control, the disease is making a comeback and outbreaks are becoming more frequent.
• Measles, a viral respiratory infection, killed over 500,000 children in 2003, more than any other vaccine-preventable disease. The measles death toll in Africa is so high – every minute one child dies – that many mothers don’t give children real names until they have survived the disease.

These are just SOME of the diseases that children and people in third world countries have to fight on a daily basis with little to no health care.  Aren’t we all so fortunate!

FLIGHTS – Getting to Africa is not like flying cross country or even to Europe for that matter.  I spent hours and days investigating various flights, routes, and costs on Orbitz, Priceline, Expedia, and Kayak.  I tried every possible combination of airlines and routes to keep costs as low as possible so more money can go to Coaches Across Continents.  I finally settled on a flight(s) that has me traveling from Raleigh-Durham, NC to Washington DC, to Rome, Italy to Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia, and FINALLY to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in a mere 27 hours!  $1650 later my trip is booked via EthiopiaAir (shockingly that is the cheapest fare available 3+ months out from my travel date!)  Problem is that only has me part of the way!  Once I get to Dar I will still need to catch a flight from Dar, which is on the east coast of Tanzania, to Kigoma, where I will be volunteering, which is on the westernmost border of the country.  Getting that flight booked has proven quite difficult as there aren’t many airlines/flight options in Tanzania.  It is not like the US where there are multiple airlines, lots of choices, and airline agents you can call for assistance.  Most Tanzanians cannot afford to fly, so there simply is no demand for the massive airline infrastructure like we have.  Thus I am currently struggling to figure out a way to book the one flight from Dar to Kigoma that I can find on Air Tanzania through an agent since the AirTanzania website, email, and phone don’t seem to be functioning.  To quote Lorrie Fair,

“T-I-A (This is Africa!) You will see anything and everything and when you think you’ve seen it all, you will see something new.”

My camps start this Thursday, June 10^th and run the next 7 weeks through to July 26^th.  It will be a busy summer and August 27^th will be here before I know it.  I am already feeling excited, apprehensive, anxious and nervous all at the same time.  Several of you have asked me if I am still fundraising for the trip.  Yes, I am!  So far I have raised $2155, and, therefore, I am 32% of the way to my $6600 goal.  A HUGE thank you to all who have donated, your generous donations will cover my flights (the inside Tanzania flight will likely run $400-500). Additional donations will go to cover my entrance fee into the country, lodging and food expenses (minimal), and supporting the Coaches Across Continents program in Kigoma where I will be working.  If you are considering donating please understand that ANY amount will help, even $5!  You can pay with a check or in even easier through the secure First Giving website www.firstgiving.com/tracynoonan with a credit card.  It is quick and easy.  Seriously, by forgoing one Mocha, one Caramel Frappuccino, one Vanilla Latte, a movie out, a bottle of wine, a new pair of shoes or outfit that you don’t really need, etc you could be making a difference in the life of a child in Africa.  Your investment CHANGES LIVES!

I also want to tell you about another great fundraising program that Coaches Across Continents has just started.  A private foundation has committed to matching all donations that end in the amount of ‘27’ up to the amount of $27,000!  So by donating with an amount that ends in $27 ($27, $127, $1027, etc) your money will count twice!  How cool is that!?!?  To find out more about the CaC Matching Donation Program go to: http://sportingcommunities.edwardswan.com/?p=2267

• $127 buys a ball, pencil, shirt, and other program supplies for a child to participate in the program for three years.
• $527 enables a local teacher to participate in CaC’s train-the-trainer program where they learn skills to create a sustainable year-round program in their community.
• $1,027 supports a whole team of kids in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia or Haiti.
• $2,527 supports a CaC volunteer coach to work in Africa.
• $5,027 starts a new partnership between a local African NGO and CaC (we have a long waiting list).
• $10,027 becomes a founding investor in CaC and effect change throughout the world.
• $27,027 runs a full Hat-trick initiative for one year.

To end this blog I want to leave you with this quote that I read on Anna Rodenbough’s blog.  It seemed to sum up my thoughts and hopes for this journey I am on better than I could.

“The magic of travel is that you leave your home secure in your own knowledge and identity, but as you travel, the world in all its richness intervenes. You meet people you could not invent; you see scenes you could not imagine. Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life, becomes smaller and smaller until it is only one tiny dot in space and time. You return a different person.

Many people don’t want to be travelers. They would rather be tourists, flitting over the surface of other peoples lives while never really leaving their own. They try to bring their world with them wherever they go, or try to recreate the world they left. They do not want to risk the security of their own understanding and see how small and limited their experiences really are.

If we don’t offer ourselves to the world, our senses dull. Our world becomes small, and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don’t lift to the horizon; we don’t hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.

Travel, no matter how humble, will etch new elements into your character. You will know the cutting moments of life where fear meets adventure and loneliness meets exhilaration. You will know what it means to push forward when you want to turn back. And when you have tragedies or great changes in your life, you will understand, that there are a thousand, a million ways to live, and that your life will go on to something new and different and every bit as worthy as the life you are leaving behind.”  -  Unknown

May 23rd, 2010.

During one of our sessions with Kisumu Youth Football Association (KYFA), Nick took half an hour at the beginning of day 2 to play with some of the street children who were at the field. There are more than 8,000 children living on the streets of Kisumu and many are substance abusers, particularly using glue.

On the field, Nick decided that he wanted to play football with two young boys aged 11 and 13. Both had a glue bottle in their mouths and were playing 1 v 1 with rolled up plastic bags as a ball and sticks in the ground for goals.

Over the course of the next 30 minutes he introduced a real football and soon had 8 street kids playing. Coaches across Continents learned about life on the street, about daily beatings from older boys and about the skills for street survival………….and we learned that street children know about Wayne Rooney, John Terry and other top players, that they think that Ivory Coast will win the World Cup and that they think that Nick is a terrible penalty taker!

One of the many great things about the Kisumu Youth Football Association is that they have more than 80 street children as part of their program playing on teams in their league.

“It was a truly unique half an hour for me on the football field. For the first few minutes the street kids thought that I was going to hit them and throw them off the field because they suffer so much daily abuse from adults. But pretty soon they were playing and talking and laughing. What was absolutely amazing was that they played with the glue bottles stuck in their mouths all the time…only taking them out to say something to me or to laugh at me if they saved my penalties.” Nick Gates, Coaches across Continents.

KYFA has previously made a big investment in coach education for football with the Dutch national program but this is their first initiative for using football for social development. Over the first four days the local Kisumu coaches have worked for 20 hours on the field and already are demonstrating a very high level for using these new coaching techniques.

Andy telling the enthralling story of Baby Ball and Dropalopovich.

One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. (But not as funny as watching Graham trying to do a dynamic hip stretch exercise while clapping in rhythm.) We also passed out Sir Bobby Robson Foundation Newcastle jerseys to all the coaches, and presented them with coaching certificates – which was a HUGE deal to them. It was amazing to see the sense of pride on some of the teenage girls’ faces when they were presented with their Junior Coach certificates. We knew that they would be hanging them up on the walls of their houses for years to come. As we left that session today, I think Nick, Andy, Graham, and I all knew that we had made a huge impact on the community of Oyguis. By training all these coaches, we were paving the way for them to stand up and make a difference in Oyugis and other towns for years to come.

Graham coaching an intense game of Scary Soccer.

When we left the session, we walked down the dirt road, just like we had done every day for two weeks, and waited for a matatu to take back to the hotel. As we were standing there, one of the matatus going the opposite direction did a U-turn and started coming back towards us…lucky us! So we hopped on the EMPTY matatu and started the short trip back. We were driving along pretty slowly, and loving it – normally the drivers go like 2390175 mph, gun it around corners, drive on the wrong side of the road, etc. We got to within 200 yards of where we were going to stop and BAM the front left wheel fell off the matatu, hurled towards a cow that dashed out of the way faster than Usain Bolt, and rolled to a stop on the side of the road. Meanwhile, the matatu skidded along a little further and came to a stop, with no panic from anyone inside, including us. Everyone just got out nonchalantly and continued on their way. A passerby brought the tire back over to the matatu and the driver and tout (the guy that collects the money) got to work fixing it. Meanwhile, we took a couple pictures and just walked the rest of the way to the Peacock Lodge.

Graham surveying the damage.

All in a day’s work. It’s funny to think about how UNaffected we were by that incident, considering that if that had happened to us in the US we would have probably been scared to death and would have vowed to never use public transportation again. Oh and undoubtedly some anal-retentive guy in the vehicle would have sued.

After cleaning up at the Peacock, we left for the lovely trip back to Nairobi. While riding on Kenyan roads is always scary, it’s also incredible to observe all the different people and places you pass on long journeys. We saw people working in fields and as street vendors, kids pushing wheels along with sticks, tons of people spilling out of transport pick up trucks, and young children carrying their even younger siblings on their backs. We saw neverending maize fields, bustling markets, and long stretches of nothingness. Our trip ended up taking about 7 hours I think, but when we reached the promised land (Java Cafe), it was worth it. I had a chicken burrito and chocolate banana milkshake, which resulted in me almost puking since that was more REAL food than I had had in the previous 10 days combined. All in all, I felt like I was reconnecting with the outside world by being back in Nairobi, but also felt a little sad about leaving the people of Oyugis and SEP behind. And being back in Nairobi also came with the inevitable departure of the illustrious Andy Old. For some reason, he felt he had to get back to the US – something about having a wife and needing to graduate from med school blah blah blah.

After getting back to Nairobi, we had a couple days off before starting our next program, with Carolina for Kibera. We hung out in Nairobi, ate some Indian food, saw several friends, and watched Sunderland lose to Man U yet again (sorry, Graham). Watching football at Sherlock’s, a crowded sports bar/restaurant at Prestige Plaza, was quite a far stretch from the football-viewing experiences in Oyugis. In Oyugis, we watched a couple EPL/Champions League games at the place next door to our hotel, a football-viewing-specific room kept up by Oyugis Youth Football Organization. Picture this: four wazungu sitting amongst fifty Kenyan guys, all crammed into a 10 yd x 20 yd room filled with wooden benches and plastic chairs facing a single, medium-sized, old TV at the front of the room. It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s at moments like those that I realize the transcendent power of football to unite people of different backgrounds, cultures, races, religions, genders, and nationalities. I can’t put into words how I felt sitting there with so many “strangers like me,” to steal from Phil Collins. Surreal.

On Monday we began the CaC program with CFK, in good old Kibera. Home sweet home. I’m not sure if you can truly understand Kibera without actually being there, but I want to try to describe what it is like – in words and pictures.

A view overlooking Kibera from the train tracks.

There are a few main paths running back into Kibera from the main road, with sensory overload all around – blaring music, screaming kids, wheelin-and-dealin vendors, burning trash, and all kinds of food. Once you go off the main paths, though, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before in your life. The “paths” back in Kibera are tiny passageways in between various structures. The passageways are usually composed of dirt, trash, and excrement. When it rains, they say you sometimes can’t tell whether you are walking in mud or feces. Yummy. The structures are usually made of dirt or sometimes stone, with tin roofs. Inside each structure there are usually a few different family “homes.” Sometimes there are 10 people living in a area about the size of my bedroom in the US.

A kid standing at the doorway to a structure in the village of Makina.

One of the worst realities in Kibera is that there is no public sanitation system, so people just throw trash everywhere. In some places, trash builds up to the point that there are virtual landfills existing right next to people’s homes.

A buildup of trash – great for public health.

Our program with CFK started off chaotically on Monday. We came in not knowing exactly what to expect, but we did know we were supposed to be running a session for about an hour with a few youth teams. At 4:30 there were about 20 kids there, by 4:45 when we started there were probably about 40, and by the time we finished around 5:45 there were close to 80. Eeeeeekkk. While we are very adaptable as coaches with CaC, that was a lot to handle! We had to modify the session and split into groups. I worked with the girls, probably from ages 10 to 25, and Graham and Nick had their hands full with 50 or 60 boys, probably from ages 6 to 20. We made it through the session successfully, but left feeling a little uneasy about the upcoming week.

Turns out our worries were futile, as the rest of the week working with coaches went quite smoothly. We had about 15-20 coaches who came out to the 5 sessions we ran, and they all worked hard and seemed to really buy into the fun-first coaching philosophy. After working with CFK in Kibera last year and this year, I have seen the need for coaching education so that the CFK and community coaches can run more fun and effective practices. It was so incredible to have several of the coaches come up to me on different occasions throughout the week and say how much they were learning, and how much they were enjoying themselves.

Onush and Afro playing Ronaldo Tag.

I think sometimes when you are doing non-profit work, it is hard to know if your work is truly making a difference. But Friday, a coach named Onush said to me, “I never knew it was better to do the exercises in a circle than just in a straight line. But the way Nick explained it, I understand now.” Right then, I knew I was a part of real change. Onush is one of CFK’s most experienced coaches, but just from having a few days with CaC, he has now learned some simple methods than can have a dramatic effect on the CFK program. Great success.

Our program with CFK ended Friday, and I was a bit sad that we didn’t have more time to work with the coaches. Nick told me that the program had been the shortest one CaC had ever done, since we were unable to schedule morning sessions due to the coaches working and schooling. I’m hoping that the CFK Sports Program will take the initiative to ask CaC back to do a full program next year. Many of the coaches have asked for copies of the drills so they can start using them ASAP, so I think we are off to a good start!

The CFK coaches in their jerseys on the last day!

We head to Kisumu to do our last CaC program in Kenya on May 20th, so stay tuned for new updates!

If you would like to contribute to Coaches across Continents and our work in Africa, please click here.

May 8th, 2010

Extracts from an interview with Festus Juma, the founder of SEP, Oyugis, Kenya.

Why did you invite Coaches across Continents to work with your community in Oyugis?

SEP is a FIFA/Streetfootballworld Football for Hope member and I met with Nick Gates from Coaches across Continents at a Football for Hope convention in S. Africa in 2009.  I knew that our SEP program needed to build our coaching capacity and develop life skills training through football.  Our use of football had been to simply play games and train for games.  Coaches across Continents gave a totally new and innovative way for us to use our football training.  It was an opportunity for our young coaches to learn from the global leaders.  Over the course of 9 months we developed a relationship with Coaches across Continents and in April they arrived in Oyugis.

What are some of the best things about the Coaches across Continents coaching program?

For the first time we have seen girls coaching sessions.  Having girls in the program was a necessity for working with Coaches across Continents and I am so grateful to see these quiet girls coaching at the top of their voices and running sessions that they have learned from Coaches across Continents.  This is the first time that we have female coaches who can teach about female empowerment and HIV.

How will you use the Coaches across Continents teaching styles to improve your SEP program?

Over the 50 hours we have identified new leaders/educators and now we can integrate them into our program.  We will use the Coaches across Continents games and curriculum to improve our Football for Social Development.  Before we simply played football and separately taught life skills. Now we can do them all by using the Coaches across Continents program.  We now have the capacity to develop our community through our coaches.

Why would you recommend that other football organizations use Coaches across Continents?

We have attended other football training programs in Kenya but they do not address the real needs of our communities…they only teach professional football.  Often we cannot use these games because we would need one ball per player and many, many cones.  Coaches across Continents is unique because it helps communities grow.  I will be recommending that all streetfootballworld members adopt the Coaches across Continents programs and principles.

It is great the kind of work you did in Oyugis, leaving our young girls and boys highly inspired, ready to take on the task of replicating the project with CAC Approach.

Coaches across Continents partnered with SEP from April 19th-29th, 2010

May 4th, 2010.  An extract from an interview by Coach Graham held with one of the emerging young coaches on the Coaches across Continents programme in Oyugis, Western Kenya, a very small but busy market town, dreadful infrastructure and physical conditions, set in a beautiful hilly, verdant and heavily cultivated landscape.

‘I want to help my family and my community.  The past ten days have shown us all so many things about how we can all use football to work with people in our community.  I did not miss a minute on the field and I have learned how to be a coach.  I will miss you all and I will work my hardest to be a great coach.  Asante sana.’

May 2nd, 2010.

Our Coaches Andy, Anna, Graham and Nick have just finished a 10 day, 30 hour course with 51 young coaches with the SEP project in Oyugis, Kenya.

SEP is the brainchild of Festus Juma and the organization uses football, agriculture and education to enhance the community.  Young players are given seed and fertilizer to grow maize, mangoes, beans, and avocado on their family land and any produce that was surplus is sold at market and the funds must be used to pay for school fees.  It is an outstanding project.

Festus identified that there was a great need for coaching standards to improve and we set about empowering the young people.  On day one we started our new Football For Female Empowerment Junior Coach program and worked with 27 novice teenagers.  It was an unbelievably successful program where the differences and standards on day ten compared to day one were so obvious.  Our coaches gave these young women, ‘a voice and a choice’.

On Day 10, 51 coaches received their certificates and Sir Bobby Robson Foundation shirts and our coaches departed from this incredibly poor rural community knowing that our work had made a huge difference to this FIFA Football for Hope sponsored program.

Congratulations to all members of SEP who worked their socks off to use our time to the fullest.

See some photos of the Certificate Day at:

SEP 2 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2450845&id=2721362&l=a869697423

4:30 am – Awoken by a ridiculous donkey who makes the mother of all “hee-haws” every morning to let the world know that he has, once again, made it through the night. This morning my brain somehow incorporated the first half of his hee-haw into my dream…but the second half resulted in full consciousness. Then I went back to sleep.

5 am – Re-awoken by the first rooster crow of the morning by our resident hotel rooster.

5:30 am – Re-awoken by the rooster again.

6 am – Rooster.

6:30 am – Again.

7 am – You guessed it.

7:30 am – Finally got up.

7:50 am – Went downstairs for breakfast with Graham, Andy, and Nick in Andy’s room. Breakfast this morning consisted of savory Wheetabix with sugar and delicious long-lasting milk. Our other favorite breakfast items include salt and vinegar crisps (potato chips), Fudge chocolate bars, corn/cardboard flakes with sweet bananas, fried dough from a vendor just up the road, and glucose biscuits (cookies).

8-8:30 am – Got ready to go to the morning session. Brushed my teeth, got dressed, lathered on the sunscreen, made the bed, put the mosquito net up, and locked up important stuff in my bags. And played a couple games of F1 Race on my phone because I am addicted.

8:35 am – Left for the morning session. Flagged down a matatu with Graham outside the hotel and got really excited when, for once, there were actually open seats.

8:45 am – Arrived at the field at Kotieno primary school. Waited for the SEP coaches to arrive. Watched them either get there late or arrive on time and take 934902384 minutes to change into their soccer gear, as usual.

9:30 am – Started the morning session, which was supposed to start at 9. (We never start on time despite the fact that Nick and Andy have reprimanded the coaches a couple times for being late. Complete waste of energy.)

9:45 am-12 pm – Morning session. In our sessions, we do lots of games from the curriculum that Nick has developed over the last 20 years, working as a coach in the U.S. and the U.K. At this point in the program, at least part of each session is spent giving the SEP coaches the opportunity to coach some of the games they have learned. Today was a bit specialized because we did an HIV/health and wellness day. So after doing the Circle of Friends (a CAC fixture) we learned from the SEP coaches about some of the HIV education they do through football. Then we taught them some more games they can use to educate their kids about HIV through fun soccer games. A problem that we come across a lot in Kenya is that a lot of the kids only get HIV education in a classroom environment or in lecture form, even when that education is coming from a football organization. So we try to give the coaches a way to engage the kids and actually use the game of soccer to teach about HIV.

12 pm – Headed off to visit some of the farms where SEP kids live and work. [Normally we go back to the hotel around 12 and rest until the afternoon session at 3 pm, but today was different, with the afternoon off.] It was a really eye-opening day because we got to see some of the development work that SEP does in the community through its agriculture program. Basically, SEP provides seeds to kids in their organization to plant crops on a plot of land on their families’ farms. Then the kids use the proceeds from whatever crops they sell to provide their own school fees. AWESOME. So we went to see several of the girls’ farms, met their families, had tea and food, and spent time in their homes. The tour of the farms went really smoothly except for the part where we all got split up and Andy ended up by himself hanging out with kids on some random farm. He’s just always making friends.

3 pm – Finally finished the tour after walking probably 5 miles through fields in the hot sun, so we were pretty exhausted. Got on a packed matatu back, in which none of us had a full seat and Andy apparently broke the wood slat that he was sitting on. Oops.

3:10 pm – Got back to the hotel, the Peacock Lodge, and immediately collapsed on the floor outside the rooms and started rehydrating. We had a pretty deep conversation about what we had just experienced. We had just heard stories of girls who work in the fields for 2-5 hours every day, on top of going to school and going to soccer practice and everything else. We saw houses where 5-10 people slept that were the size of my bedroom. It is incredible to see how little these people have in terms of material possessions but how much they have in terms of support from their families and the community. We spent time talking to many of the families, like Maureen’s. Maureen is sixteen years old and the oldest of six children. She helps her mom take care of the rest of her siblings since her dad died about ten years ago. She also helps work the family farm (including her own plot with the SEP seed), where they grow maize and beans. Maureen has one more year of secondary school to complete, and after that she says wants to become a soccer coach! We have an amazing opportunity to make a lasting impact on her life through our work with CAC – and the coolest part is that we are giving her the tools she needs to make an impact on the lives of the children she works with in the future. Maureen’s mom is an incredible lady who takes care of her family, works the farm, serves on the board of SEP, and is a health worker for Oyugis Integrated Project. We talked with Maureen’s mom about some of her struggles, like the rain coming in her house and worrying about where her children sleep. We told the family how amazing we think they are and how we take so much for granted growing up in the western world. I cannot express how inspiring it is to hear a widow living with her six children in a mud hut say that she is genuinely happy.

3:30 pm – Time for lunch! We had ramen noodles today – the chicken curry flavor is pure gold. I am not lying, Ramen noodles are a luxury for us here. When we were in our first hotel in Oyugis, La Mola, there was a restaurant, so we would always get chips, chicken, samosas, eggs, or omelets for lunch and dinner. Limited options, but definitely edible. Ever since we moved to Peacock Lodge (best decision of our lives – for only 500 shillings a night we have hot water, clean and sizable rooms, bright lights, and no cockroaches!), we have had to devise lunch and dinner plans every day. We have found a couple restaurants in Oyugis where we can eat dinner, but lunch is usually a bit of an adventure. Actually dinner is still an adventure too, since we usually have to wait at least an hour for the food and then generally get caught out in a storm. But back to lunch. During our time here we have found more and more food options at the Shivlings supermarket and at street vendors, including the following: PB and J, crisps, biscuits, sweet bananas, cereal, chips (french fries) from a vendor up the street, buttered bread, chocolate, pineapple, baked beans (we pay the chips lady to heat them up for us), boiled eggs, and ramen noodles. For a few days the only options were PB and J, crisps, biscuits, and chocolate – WELL-BALANCED DIET. But then we became more resourceful, bought an electric heating-coil and aluminum pot, and now the options are pretty much endless. Well that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it really has been life-changing. Oh and I almost forgot to say that we also have hot sauce – thank you Graham for making that invaluable purchase.

4-7 pm – Caught up with everything on the internet. There is a internet “cafe” (a place with computers and soda) next to our hotel that is run by the Oyugis Youth Football Organization, so we always head over there to use the internet at a price of 1 shilling per minute. When I say “always,” I mean when we have time and when the internet is working, which is definitely not always. The place isn’t open some days, and a lot of times the connection is awful. Today it was at average speed (aka 17 million times slower than anywhere in the U.S.) so I got to talk with some friends and family at home and got caught up with all my emails. The internet/power only cut off a couple of times…until the rain came in and it was all over. At that point, Graham, Nick, and I sprinted back to our hotel gate, only to be stranded in the lashing rain for two minutes while we waited for someone to open the gate. Actually, I don’t think we ever would have gotten in except for the fact that Andy was inside is room and happened to take his iPod headphones out long enough to hear us yelling his name. He then walked outside and motioned for the guy to let us in. Kenyans hate rain and this guy was clearly just going to let us drown before sacrificing himself to let us in. We were soaked to the bone when we finally got inside. Just another priceless memory from Africa.

7:15 pm – Took a nice hot shower, except for the occasional wave of cold rain blown in through the open window in my bathroom. Why didn’t I just close the window? Oh, that’s because the pane of glass fell out of the frame a couple nights and crashed to the ground below. Cool. I really couldn’t care less about rain blowing in though, because the hot water is magnificent.

7:30 pm – Went downstairs to get dinner in Andy’s room a.k.a. the kitchen. We had a late lunch and we clearly weren’t going anywhere in the monsoon, so I had a lovely meal consisting of cornflakes with bananas and milk, a Fudge bar, and a couple glucose biscuits. We all hung out in the room for a while telling funny stories and laughing hysterically. Andy, Graham, and Nick are all hilarious – especially when you put them together. Life here is filled with laughter, which is exactly how I like it.

8:30 pm – Called it a night and headed up stairs to get ready for bed…it may seem early, but surprisingly, there isn’t much night life in Oyugis. I read for bit (Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Everything is the current pick), examined my sexy farmer’s tan in the mirror, listened to music, edited some pictures, and worked on this blog before tucking the mosquito net in and turning the lights off around 11:30. That’s much later than I normally go to bed here, so the early morning donkey wake up call should be fun!

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So, looking back at my last blog, life in western Kenya was proving somewhat challenging, in no small part due to the accommodation we found ourselves in, its resident wildlife and the totally alien context of our temporary home in Oyugis.  But four days on and our circumstances have taken a couple of steps for the better!  However, this is Africa, and one must treat good fortune with caution as, true to reputation, things are never quite as they seem…. more later on.

I am not here on a pleasure trip, so I guess the peculiarities of our day by day experiences are secondary matters anyway, however ‘memorable’ they will prove to be.  I am here to work with my friend’s fledgling charity ‘Coaches Across Continents’, or as we say in the business… “CaC” – hmmm, unlucky.  As I have set out before, the charity works with existing community development projects established across africa, and increasingly in other continents, to help enhance individuals’ life skills, improve health awareness and address gender inequalities amongst communities of severely under privileged children and young people.  The vehicle and hook for capturing the children’s attention is football.  I was aware of the passion for the game in africa, but nothing can prepare you for just how deep and widespread that is.  Men and boys particularly know everything about the Premier League…Their knowledge is amazing and enthusiasm astonishing given their remote location and severely limited access to TV and the internet.   Most of them are even well informed enough to recognise that Sunderland  are the greatest team to ever play the game. Honestly they do, yeah, honest.

This week we are working with Oyugis’s Social Empowerment Programme (SEP) and some young people from Nairobi’s ‘Moving Mountains’ project.  We seek to teach the older attendees the skills they need to coach children themselves in their own communities so the benefit is self sustaining.  We do this through interactive, practical field sessions only – no classrooms, no lectures, and absolutely loads of fun.  The days usually consist of a three hour coaching session in the mornings for all attendees, and then practical sessions for different age groups and girls and boys in the afternoons.  In the sweltering equatorial sun, that is a busy day!

I am very new to the work and have been learning on the job day by day.  At first it was tough, particularly having only a rudimentary understanding of the many games we use.  This feeling was exacerbated by watching the extreme professionalism, confidence and well-honed banter (often at my expense), of my team mates Anna, Nick and Andy who between them have many years footballing, teaching and coaching  experience at the highest levels in England and in the States.  The learning curve has been steepened by the attendees being mostly older than I expected, with our youngest probably of about 9 years of age, but our oldest around 24.  Most of the children and young people, including the girls have well developed footy skills – all the more surprising by the fact that most don’t have access to real footballs and the bomb-site condition of the playing field we use, although surprisingly picturesque.  Consequently the games we use are sometimes relatively complex and set real challenges for the kids which they really try hard to meet.

One of several core principles of CaC is teaching with fun, a smile and without fear of a good reprimand if – and when, it all goes pear-shaped (did someone mention fresh fruit?…..cruel, very cruel).  Consequently part of our role is to get the kids to relax and enjoy…. which they absolutely do, but at the same time ensure they are focused on the session, concentrate and endeavor to develop their personal and footy skills.  Nick says we measure the success of a session by the amount of noise (shouts, screams and laughter) raised on the field.  Well I reckon we must be doing something right then!.  It is great fun, and each day as we get to know the ‘kids’ better and they become familiar with the style and concept, that enjoyment builds.  I think, and hope I have contributed to that enjoyment and learning.  Seeing the kids turn up everyday, refusing to rest even when they are shattered and constantly trying to please us is so rewarding, particularly if we take a moment to remember just how tough their lives are beyond the pitch.  The girls particularly are great to work with and to gradually draw them out of their shells because in this society there are so often denied a voice and take a back-seat to the boys who usually get preferential treatment.  One anecdote demonstrating how their world is removed from ours relates to me asking a couple of the lads what all the vertical holes all across the pitch were.  ‘Snake nests’ they told me, without joking.  I made a fuss, they chuckled… they then told me it is worse in the woods around the town where they go and scavenge for firewood – “that’s were the cobras are” they say, “we have to be careful where we put our hands”.  They were still smiling! Amazing what they see as ‘normal’ chores.

More on the coaching in a later blog I expect.

So back to the other challenge, that of ‘getting by’ in a place which doesn’t even make it into the Lonely Planet guidebook (take a peek on Google Earth – Oyugis).  So we are getting a ‘little stressed’ with the first place we were staying.  Each day on the manic matatus we ride up to the fields, we passed a place which in comparison to our digs looked like the Hilton.  So while Nick and I were running a session, Anna and Andy check it out.  “It’s amazing, its available, and its cheaper then where we are!!!”  Deep deep joy (although Nick insisted we stayed one more night in the cells to avoid upsetting our host… deep, deep despair – particularly for Andy who narrowly defeated a monster flying cockroach only on a judges’ split decision at 3-26 am.). However, next day we move in to the ‘Peacock Lodge’. Without exaggeration the best building in Oyugis – although essentially a blockwork building with tin roof.  Just 8 rooms, but all bright, with real glass in real windows, hot showers, tiled floors. If you booked it for your summer hols, you may not be too impressed by the standard of the valet parking, infinity pool and and room-service (none of which have ever been dreamed of here), but I can’t tell you the happiness simple things can bring in times of stress.  What the brochure didn’t mention is it does not ‘do’ food, it is the meeting place of the African Society of Master Cockerels (Extra Early Division), abuts ‘fighting dog alley’ and has a neighbourhood donkey which can only be described as the loudest animal to ever feel the need to hold midnight chats with his brother – who we reckon must live somewhere near Coventry.  Honestly its is manic!

But it is a price worth paying.  And a good breakfast will help with the lack of sleep!.  Ah, yes, food.  I’m not recommending salt and vinegar crisps, fudge bars and custard cremes (stale) for ‘brecky’ for more than a few days, but needs must.  We’ll make up for it in the evenings, oh yes, yes we will.  Well guess what? … we ended up back in our first lodgings for more of the Spanish omlette and chips which had previously been the straw which broke the camel’s back before we moved!.  The proprietor was delighted that the 4 ‘Mzungu’ (white person) had returned to his wonderful establishment…he was beaming!.  Shall we say options for dining out are ‘limited’! Nick, who has travelled extensively in Africa has not been anywhere were it is as hard to source hot or fresh food.  What options there are are either deeply suspect, always closed or take a ridiculous amount of time to serve…. almost 2 hours on thursday night…and when it arrived it looked as it was already half eaten.  Laugh?!…. well no actually.  So today we have adapted and improvised… oh yes, Ray Mears has competition.  Noodles, pan, water heating element..(all bought together for less than a fiver)…. Equals best meal of the trip so far!  We have also discovered a sort of doughnut fried in tiny shacks by the road… we add jam and presto-hey, heart attack…I mean a tasty snack.  We may even boil an egg tomorrow!

This is all true but we have to laugh about it, despite the on-set of malnutrition and tell tale signs of scurvey.  This a relatively small town (although a big district population) and it is poor, no, it is extremely poor.  There isn’t going to be much choice is there?!  The irony is that the landscape is so green and the fields appear to be full of crops, but most is used as subsistence food supplies, with any remainder going as cash crop.  In any case being in town after dark (and it is so dark… hardly an electric light on anywhere, never mind streetlights) is not safe for us.  We are extremely conspicuous in a town with no other white people, and perceived by most as being wealthy.  And I suppose by comparison we are.  Most people here earn $1 a day!

It is rainy season the ‘angry month’, and most evenings we have seen spectacular thunderstorms and downpours.  Last night this triggered a biblical eruption of flying termites, squillions of ‘em.  And of course they flocked to light sources.  To our amusement and Nick’s dismay he had left on a light while we were out.  A conservative estimate puts it at around 5,000 in his room, all with big wings falling off as they landed.  Still you have to get your protein somewhere, waste not want not!!

Best wishes,

Graham