Our Core Values
The basis for all of Coaches Across Continents' work across the globe is based on the value of equal human rights, and that everyone should have the opportunity to learn and choose their future. Our philosophy and methodology is grounded in three key UN documents and allow us to Create Legacies for a better world:
UN Declaration of Human Rights
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Our Published Self-Directed Learning Methodology
Self-Directed Learners possess attitudes such as independence of mind, confidence in their own judgment, a sense of self-esteem leading to self-actualization and the ability to cooperate and collaborate with others. They are independent thinkers who can define and solve problems, reason logically, engage in the projection of their own ideas and set goals and strategies to achieve them. They reflect upon experience and learn from it.
Dr. Judith Gates and Chief Executive Brian Suskiewicz have published an article in Soccer & Society, Soccer Changes Lives: from learned helplessness to self-directed learners.
CAC's "Chance to Choice" Educational Philosophy
Dr. Judith Gates first postulated that young people throughout the world go through 7 similar stages of development, from circumstances of birth and the conformity of an unquestioned lifestyle, through deepening insight, to the recognition of potential choices:
Chance of birth: the inheritance of country, culture, religion, family, and traditions.
Conformity of childhood: unquestioning acceptance, fitting in to inherited culture, unawareness of alternatives, lead to cultural acquiescence.
Conflict of adolescence: ritual rebellion, self-assertion, questioning of the taken for granted contribute to the emerging individual.
Certainty of post-adolescence: need for peer approval, for similarity, for acceptance, for the avoidance of doubt, leads to culturally created complacency.
Contradictions: awareness of ambiguities and complexity, acceptance that no one answer is sufficient, deepening uncertainty supporting rejection of what was previously taken for granted.
Challenge: gaining insights, glimpsing alternative ways of thinking, considering options, imagining a different future, open up to possibilities for new ways of living.
Choice: growing in confidence, taking personal responsibility, owning your life, creating oneself, choosing a future, empower and liberate from the constraints of the past.
Coaches Across Continents' Theory of Change
The predominant approach to change in developing countries is typically top-down, outside in, and deficit based. This frequently manifests itself in a “west knows best” approach, by which foreign experts identify what they perceive to be local community issues. Externally determined solutions are then presented to local recipients with the expectation that they will be accepted and long term change will result. The change process is thus based on primary ownership by outsiders who analyse the situation based upon their perspectives, issues external directives and seek to change local communities without input from the community itself.
Conversely the guiding principles of Coaches Across Continents’ Theory of Change. are that it should be bottom up, inside out and based on building community capacity. Change is fostered from within by empowering local partners to question previously taken for granted cultural certainties, challenge damaging local traditions and make responsible choices for their future. The Coaches Across Continents curriculum is structured to create Self-Directed Learners who have the capacity to identify, analyze and address local concerns and to see the world in a fundamentally different way.
Corporate of the Year Winner
CAC's partnership with Chevrolet was named 'Corporate of the Year' by Beyond Sport.
Games 4 Good Foundation 2016
We were awarded a grant by Games 4 Good Foundation for our partnership with training4changeS in South Africa.
Beyond Sport Awards
CAC was shortlisted for the 2015 Beyond Sport Awards in the UNICEF Safeguarding Children in Sport category.
Kicking + Screening Winner 2012
Kicking + Screening Film Festivan announced that it had selected CAC as its Social Initiative for 2012.
Community Sports Facility Award
Connor Sport Court developed Tanzania’s first all weather, multi-purpose court in Kigoma.
Global Sports Finalist 2010
CAC was selected as a finalist at the Global Sports Forum in the Sport and Education category.
All 4 Africa Finalist 2009
CAC was a finalist at the SCORE4Africa Awards in London in 2009.
