Getting Creative With Chevrolet
November 11th 2016. CAC’s award-winning partnership with Chevrolet FC continued in Delhi, India with Sudeva.
This week we have been delighted to bring our partnership with Chevrolet FC to Sudeva Sports in Delhi, India. Chevrolet recently built a full-size grass field for Sudeva. They are one of the biggest football academies in Delhi with some of the best sporting talent in the country. The new field will help Sudeva take their academy to the next level and continue their players physical and personal development. Chevrolet FC hosted an event in Delhi which brought Manchester United legend Quinton Fortune to Delhi to open the new field.
Excitement and hope are common emotions in Delhi. The sights, sounds and smells convey a sense of history, diversity, unpredictability and passion. This is constantly expressed in many ways including the incessant beeping of car horns and the mixing of innumerable spices to create delicious meals. During our time working with Sudeva we experienced these feelings on the sports field. Working with an energetic group of young men and women from Sudeva and another Delhi partner, Naz Goal, we saw their excitement in every game we played and felt their openness through high-fives, handshakes and the occasional fistbump. Most of all though we heard their belief in a community, city and country which has the ability to grow and develop into a hub for critical thinking, open-mindedness and tolerance through their words and laughter.
CAC attempts to create a space, using sport, where participants can safely discuss problems in their community and identify creative solutions to these problems. During this program, the group discussed issues such as gender equality, social inclusion and the environment (especially as the field was covered in smog after Diwali) which harm the economic and social development of their country. Towards the end of the week the young leaders were becoming adept at creating new sport for social impact games to address these issues with local youth. Following discussions with participants we prioritized our ASK for Choice female empowerment curriculum due to the troublingly high instances of discrimination against women in all walks of life in India. These games often prompted the most impactful discussions of the entire program. As Vicky, 1st team goalkeeper for Sudeva said, ‘Gender equality starts with us – ourselves, families, communities and up to our country and world.’
Thanks to Chevrolet FC, our work with Sudeva will allow their hopeful young leaders to sustainably use the new field to harness the creativity and passion of local children for social good. The safe space, energy, support and resources are there- now it is time to implement.
The CAC Partner Experience
August 5th 2016. Kebby Shampongo, founder of CAC partner Malalo Sports Foundation, discusses the impact of the partnership on Malalo and the communities they serve in the Copperbelt of Zambia.
Coach’ – I usually go by Rubén-
– Yes?
-‘Could I rest a little bit today before we start?
-No problem. Everything OK? – He had sleepy eyes and a pale face.
– I worked the night shift at the mine, but I wanted to come!
Some of us just continue yielding, happy and without resistance, to the gravitational power of the Ball. After a week full of great commitment gestures and deep and transforming learning in Chingola, Zambia, we talked to our friends of Malalo Sports, a Sports for Social Impact Organization based in Chililabombwe, to discover together how their unique Pathway with CAC will look. With their vision set on evolution and reaching youth nationwide, they shared with us how their work, in partnership with CAC, has impacted the communities of Chililabombwe and Chingola, where they currently focus their operations:
“The Malalo Sports Foundation has significantly improved in using sports for social change in Chililabombwe and Chingola. It has been three years of great partnership with CAC and Malalo Sports Foundation. Before the partnership with Coaches Across Continents, as a coach and Director of the Foundation, I could not figure out how we could meet the challenges that our young people were facing such as:
1. Alcohol Abuse
2. Environmental challenges (trash-Bottles and plastics)
3. Conflict.
I have been coaching for years before becoming an administrator. Some of my players play football for local professional teams and international teams across Africa. However some of the boys and girls would not attain the highest level of sporting, moral excellence and community leadership. The partnership with CAC three years ago came at the right time as Malalo Sports Foundation (MSF) collaborates with over 75 coaches from the two communities to use football as a tool for social change. The collaboration has impacted over 5,000 children and young people in our communities. The community leaders and coaches now have been able to deliver the CAC curriculum to the communities and children. We have seen a drastic reduction in the abuse of alcohol, coaches are able to create a safe working environment for the children while internal sporting/community conflicts are being solved by the participants (children and youths). Coaches and teams from local organizations and schools have appealed to our leadership to work closely with CAC and devise innovative ways on how we can replicate this model to other communities.
It has been a great experience for us to learn from CAC staff and volunteers drawn from diverse backgrounds and cultures over the last three years and we would recommend that we explore future collaborations. We believe sustained relationship with CAC shall highly benefit the people of Zambia . I would also like to salute you for your constant engagement and support. We at MSF have a lot of room to learn and improve even from other communities that CAC serve globally.
I would also like to salute my team (Able Chewe and Philimon Chitalu) for their tireless efforts despite running on a shoe string budget.
Sporting wishes to you all.
Love, peace and harmony”
My Week In Chililabombwe
July 12th 2016. Community Impact Coach Elvis Nshimba wrote about his time with CAC and Malalo Sports Foundation in Chililabombwe, Zambia.
I’m very happy and honored to work with Coaches Across Continents. In 2014, I attended the training of CAC games in Lubumbashi within my organization (Malaika Foundation). The following year I attended the second training with interest and was committed to implement what I was learning.
I realized that working with Coaches Across Continents as a Community Impact Coach is an important thing for my life and for my organization. My application was accepted and I was appointed to go and implement games we learned at Chililabombwe in Zambia.
Being my first time to work as a Community Impact Coach in a foreign country, I felt very excited as my need to travel is growing. I had a great week in Chililabombwe from the 3rd to the 10th of July with a great team: Nora Dooley, Ruben Alvarado, Macie Jones and Nico Achimpota.
I began teaching games that I didn’t know before, but as a Community Impact Coach, I was able to read them once and understand what I could do with local coaches in Zambia. Teaching the first game wasn’t so easy, but the second and the following were great games we taught.
In this trip, I learned many things about people, their lifestyle, different issues they have in their community and I improved my English. Zambian coaches were very kind, friendly and humble. They were good at implementing games we taught them, and committed to positively impact their community by using sport with boys and girls.
I would like to thank very much the Boards of Coaches Across Continents who allowed me, through this program, to go beyond my country, and as a Community Impact Coach, I wish to keep on running On-Field programs with them any where they can send me as a volunteer. I’m also grateful to Ruben and Nora who helped me improve my knowledge in implementing games.
As long as this program keeps on being run, I hope to contribute with my knowledge and my energy to impact the world with positive messages through sports.
Chennai learns about Gazza
May 26th 2015. After two exciting weeks in Kolkata, I headed to Chennai to continue strengthening our partnership with Slum Soccer and Chevrolet FC and train another group of future coaches and youth leaders. The Slum Soccer Chennai team had selected a few coaches from their various centers in Tamil Nadu who will be responsible for implementing the CAC curriculum every week in their respective communities. The training effectively served as the transition between the first and second instalments of the Gamesa league. Building off of the excitement from the final tournament, just a week before, we worked to set the foundation for a strong second year of football for social impact throughout the region. Protection of the environment, gender equality and alcohol abuse were the chosen social issues for the week.
The five Gazza games we played on Wednesday had tremendous success. Gazza is the player for our alcohol abuse module. All five games were chosen on Friday by participants to coach back to their peers. This demonstrates both how much the issue hit home but also their commitment to football for social impact. Although this was their first time to coach, they made a conscious effort to deliver the social messages associated with each game. What was remarkable was that each group described Gazza’s story in their own way and identified different lessons that could be learned. Some coaches also had fun inventing another version of Gazza Dizzy tag. Gazza Dizzy tag is a game where the taggers have to turn around themselves while running, making it very difficult to catch players as they loose their balance, very much like the effects alcohol can have on one’s body. Instead of a tag game, players had to spin ten times around themselves and then try to score a goal, if they even managed to get to the ball before falling down.
The training took place on a football field right in the middle the Mylapore community. This type of setting makes it easy to generate community support for a program. Slum Soccer has recently started working with Mylapore residents who are somewhat of an anomaly in cricket-crazy Chennai. We took advantage of the interest created by the training and the productive discussion after Marta for Gender Equity about why girls should play sport and why they don’t to invite girls from Mylapore for a fun session on Thursday afternoon. The three sole female participants led the games. More girls have been joining teams as a result of last year’s training and many of the participants have discussed the idea of opening girl centers when they return to their own communities.
It has been exciting to witness Slum Soccer’s growth throughout India and there is no doubt that this new set of youth leaders will continue to expand the partnership’s impact to their different communities.
