Kabwe

Three Tackle Africa coaches visited Kabwe in October 2008; Kabwe is a town characterised most perhaps by its once booming copper mining industry, and now a place short on jobs, and struggling with high HIV infection rates and young people not unlike youngsters in the UK, turning to drink, drugs and sexual activity for excitement.

The Kabwe project used a day centre for vulnerable street kids (Sables) as a base; its situated right next to a community pitch used by a lot of local teams. We aimed to achieve two major objectives; firstly to run a coaching clinic for local football coaches, thus training them to deliver the Tackle Africa HIV related training drills to a high coaching standard and with clear HIV messaging, and second to foster relationships that could mean Tackle Africa’s model of reaching young people through football could continue and grow after our departure.

The coaches visiting Kabwe brought their own unique experiences to the table, Tim Newsome as a UEFA B level coach and Charlie McGrath, an experienced project worker in Zambia and also someone able to coach netball and reach Zambian girls in a country where ladies football is not yet as popular as elsewhere in Africa.

We achieved the objectives; not only did the coaches come together to learn the drills, we have formed a forum of local coaches representing ten junior sides, who will continue to meet and share coaching practice and innovations in HIV drills. A proposed Tackle Africa ‘Play Safe’ Youth League is also in the offing, and several new drills have been designed by local coaches.

Lusaka

The second half of the trip, to Lusaka (with potential partners Breakthrough Sports Academy who support youth football in Lusaka’s poorer districts) played out a bit differently, but ultimately with similar outcomes. The coaches involved, Ele Lewis, Clive Fogleman and Gudrun Jevne, again ran a coaching clinic, though in the absence of an organised local partner.

We ran the sessions using paper and marker pen, blu-tacked to a wall next to a community pitch, and managed to run 3 days worth of coaching clinics, reaching out to football coaches from five different areas of Lusaka (often with large crowds of schoolkids peering over their shoulders). We visited the sites where the local coaches coached, community pitches in or just outside the local ‘compounds’ that people live in, and were able to introduce the training sessions to large groups of under 10s to under 19s and also assess the local coaches delivering Tackle Africa drills.

We were also involved in three ‘Independence Day’ football tournaments, where we ran sessions for teams who were in between games, and presented awards, particularly focussing on the players’ involvement with the Tackle Africa workshops in between games.

While a future partner did not emerge from this leg of the trip, the coaches who attended the course fedback positively and a short trip was able to reach a very large target audience, confirming I believe that a model that empowers local coaches is Tackle Africa’s most effective means of creating a sustainable impact on young people. Where we can back this up by supporting ongoing football events, or giving the youngsters chance to play competitively, and train with a peer group that supports each other, it is clear that the impact of the HIV training drills carries on beyond the football session and informs the lives of many young people.

The trip also enabled us to formalise a coaching clinic ‘curriculum’ with valuable feedback from local coaches on what was most needed for them to continue to spread the messages of healthy living through high quality football coaching.

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