June 29th, 2010.

Thanks to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, Coaches across Continents was able to supply football shirts to four programs in Kenya and one in Uganda.

The shirts were collected from the memorial at St James’s Park and Sir Bobby’s wife contacted Coaches across Continents to ask whether we could give the shirts to new local coaches, community leaders and children at our programs.  Sir Bobby was a big spokesperson for Coaches across Continents and listened with enthusiasm to the stories of how football was used for social development.

We were delighted to have been chosen by the Foundation to receive the shirts and to be able to distribute them in Africa.  Local coaches who trained with our program in Eastlands, Kibera, Oyugis, Kisumu and PaderTown received the shirts upon completion of training in coaching football for life skills for children.  The shirts will help coaches work with more than 20,000 children.

More than 50 local coaches in Kisumu, Kenya trained with Coaches across Continents for 50 hours, learning new games and new styles for teaching children. 

“Being able to give the local coaches a football shirt at the end of the training was an amazing gesture.  To see the pride in their faces as they put on the shirts that were donated by fans all over England and then to hear the story of one of Englands’ greatest ever coaches gave all the local volunteers even more enthusiasm to go out and influence the lives of the children in the community.  The spirit of Sir Bobby is still playing on the fields in Africa”   Coach Anna.

Coaches across Continents programs are on going in July in Uganda and South Africa and later this year in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.

Check out: http://coachesacrosscontinents.com/Coaches/index_E.html for some great stories from our coaches in the field.

February 8th, 2010

Coaches across Continents are pleased to announce our 4th partner program in Kenya with Kisumu Youth Football Association.  Their program is built around two pillars. Firstly they believe that by creating an enabling environment for competition, young people will be encouraged to form a football team for which children and youth are recruited with whom they train every day in preparation for the weekly competition matches. Within this context an enabling environment means, good fields, reliable registration systems, skilled referees and efficient management.  Secondly, they believe that the teams are avenues for and their leaders are agents of youth development. By building their capacity, KYFA pursues to improve the welfare of children and youth. We hope that KYFA teams will turn into their positive peer groups recognized throughout the community.

“We would hope the Coaches Across Continents would be able to help build the capacity of our coaches, in the sense that the coaches would be able to coach the players in more than soccer. We want the coaches to be good role models for their players and to help develop the social skills of the children, in order to help develop the community”.  Coach Kelsey from KYFA.

“Our Coaches will be in Kenya from March 31st until May 30th and we are delighted to have been approached by so many organizations who use football for social development to form mutually beneficial partnerships.  Sharing ideas and coaching styles will help communities around the world build their programs and help thousands of teachers and children.  KYFA have a fantastic program and we are looking forward to sharing and learning with them”  Steve Bowsher, Board of Directors Coaches across Continents.