Sports
Volunteer Programme
The Sports Volunteer Programme in Mombasa is
a project that supports the educational, physical and personal development of
underprivileged children through introducing them to new sports and physical
activities. The volunteers have
integrated themselves seamlessly within the schools, amongst their fellow
volunteers and Kenyan teachers. They
have proved to play a vital teaching role by engaging children in their
learning through sporting and outdoor pursuits.
The Sports volunteers work alongside the other volunteers teaching two
Sports lessons a week to Standards 1 to 8 (encompassing an age range of
5-15). This enables the volunteer to
teach a wide range of games and sports to different age groups and abilities. Standard 1 and 2 enjoy games of Tag whilst
the older standards love to learn the rules to new team sports, such as Netball
and Volleyball.
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| Sports volunteer James at Olives. |
One of the main benefits of being a Sports
volunteer is that, not only do you get to a teach a wide variety of ages, you
are also able to teach at both Olives Rehabilitation Centre and Nyota Ing’arayo
School. If only one Sports volunteer is
on the programme at one time, then their week is split between the two schools;
Monday, Wednesday, Friday at one school and Tuesday, Thursday at the other.
 |
| Sports volunteer Lynda at Nyota |
Sports is an aspect of the Kenyan Curriculum,
however it is usually undertaken as a whole school event during a Friday
afternoon. As you can imagine, this
number of children in one place at the same time proves to be totally unmanageable
and any attempt to instigate rules and discipline is futile. GVI initiated separate class sports lessons
when they began their partnership with both schools and as a result team sports
have flourished! The children now do not
simply chase after the ball aimlessly, they work as a team and are beginning to
understand the concept of positions in games such as football. The Sports volunteers have proved integral in
this turnaround as they have the time to plan warm-up exercises that
concentrate on dribbling, passing and control of the ball (rather than just
shooting). Another major change is the
children’s attitude to different sports, they used to moan and complain if any
sport was mentioned that was not football, but due to the Sports volunteers’ continued
perseverance Netball and Volleyball have now become their favourite team
sports.
The Sports volunteers have managed to instil
their passion for certain sports into these children, who otherwise would have
had no idea they even existed!
By Michele
Comber - Project Manager
Sports Volunteer Programme
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