World’s FIRST Accredited Coaches in Purposeful Play Announced!
Back in January we announced the launch of our new Accredited Coach initiative. Accredited Coaches are the only coaches in the world equipped with Education Outside the Classroom training to impact the UNSDGs and Safe-Guarding Child Rights through Purposeful Play curriculum and methodology. For more information please visit this blog.
Coaches Across Continents has had the honour of working with and supporting tens of thousands of coaches, teachers and community leaders across the world since our inception in 2008. Amongst our most engaging and enthusiastic partners are our Community Impact Coaches (CIC’s), who are the local leaders in their communities and have the passion to deliver social change through sport. We have designed this initiative to further enhance their skill set and are delighted to announce the first six of them below…
Nico Achimpota – Kigoma – Tanzania
Nico Pota is a Tanzanian CIC and is one of the original members of CAC, contributing to the birth of CAC’s first programme in 2008. Since then Nico has been dedicated to bringing sustainable social change to developing communities in multiple countries in Africa. He truly cares about communities and believes that education is the most sustainable way to help people reach their goals and change their lives. Nico is an inspiring community leader, a respectful teacher, and an all-around sportsman.
Daniela Gutierrez – Juego en tu Barrio – Peru
Daniela Gutierrez Neciosup is a community leader in every sense of the term. She has invested in her city of Lima, Perú through involvement and leadership in many different organizations including her current initiative, Juega en tu Barrio. She has been a CAC Community Impact Coach since we first met her in 2014 and has traveled with CAC all over Perú and to México and Ecuador. Her life motto says it all – “PASSION MADE ACTION: Transform everything you are passionate about into actions that allow us to build a better world”.
Jaspreet Kaur – Rurka Kalan YFC – India
A CIC since 2015, Jaspreet has travelled across India and to Qatar with CAC. Jaspreet is also the Project Manager at YFC Rurka Kalan in Punjab – one of India’s leading youth football academies. A passionate believer in the power of sport and how it can change lives, Jaspreet is a trailblazer in creating and delivering innovative projects that impact children and young people in her community, across india and beyond.
Elvis Nshimba – Malaika – Democratic Republic of Congo
A CIC since 2015, Elvis Nshimba is the Programs and Evaluation Manager at Malaika. Elvis joined Malaika as a teacher in 2012 and in 2014, joined the first on-field training with CAC, where he then got involved in using sport as a tool to educate communities. Elvis’ goal is to ‘tirelessly impact youths and adults from the community center and regional schools towards sustainable development, training and i’m committed in supporting youths to become coaches’.
Saraswati Negi – Naz Foundation – India
A CIC since 2019, Saraswati has delivered programming in India and the Phillipines with CAC and is a champion of womens and girls rights across the world. Saraswati works as Training Coordinator with The Naz Foundation (India) Trust. In her role she is responsible for managing, designing, reviewing, redesigning and conducting all TOT programs in Naz for capacity building of staff. She leads the mainstreaming of Abhayam- Naz Child Protection of children and young vulnerable adults within Naz’s activities. Saraswati derives motivation from young people’s leadership and strives to work for them and with them.
David Mulo – Green Kenya – Kenya
After attending several CAC trainings from 2010-2013, David was inspired to take the leap and start his own NGO in 2013 called Green Kenya. Green Kenya works with schools and runs programmes to use sport for social empowerment with a focus on women’s rights and the environment. David became a CIC in 2017 whilst being Director of Green-Kenya. He has travelled across Kenya and to Malawi with CAC – delivering Purposeful Play programming and David mentioned he now has a burning desire to change the world through play.
Salim Twaha Blanden – Mbarara Sports Academy – Uganda
Salim is the founder of Mbarara Sports Academy in Uganda and was the first ever Community Impact Coach in the country! Salim uses sports and purposeful play to connect with children and young people to create awareness about different issues affecting his community and other communities in Uganda.
Patrina Kaye Nartea Caceres – FundLife International – Philippines
Patrina holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Arts Degree from the University of the Philippines and is currently pursuing her Master of Arts in Teaching at the Leyte Normal University. She has been a football coach since 2010. She is presently a college instructor of the Eastern Visayas State University and a football coach /mentor of FundLife International. She has been a CAC Community Impact Coach (CIC) since 2015. She pursues her motto of “helping change the world, one class/ football team at a time”.
Benedict Marquis – Sports With A Mission – India
Benedict M, founder of Sports With A Mission teaches life skills through sports, to underprivileged children and youth, using purposeful play and self directed learning. He creates safe spaces for children and youth especially for girls and women to explore and express themselves.
Lina Restrepo – INDER Medellín – Colombia
Lina is a former player for Atlético Nacional and Antioquia Soccer Team. She now is a Psychologist, Specializing in Activity Psychology, Physics and Sports, and currently works as a professor at the Universidad San Buenaventura. In Lina’s words “Since 2015, the experience with CAC in Urabá, Bogotá, Chile and other places of the world, has allowed me to find new directions in my life: to know what is beyond high performance, and that we have the power to be intentional with Sport for the Development in our communities, playing for social purposes from sexual education, mental health, diversity, interculturality, questioning traditional sport, gender violence and much more.”
Psicóloga, Especialista en Psicología de la Actividad Física y el Deporte. Exjugadora de Atlético Nacional y Selección Antioquia de Fútbol. Actualmente, docente de la Universidad San Buenaventura e integrante del equipo Deporte y Convivencia del INDER Medellín.
Desde el año 2015, la experiencia con CAC en Urabá, Bogotá, Chile y otros lugares del mundo, ha permitido encontrar nuevas direcciones en mi vida: conocer que más allá del alto rendimiento, tenemos el poder de intencionar el Deporte para el Desarrollo de nuestras comunidades, jugar con propósitos sociales de educación sexual, salud mental, diversidad, interculturalidad, cuestionar el deporte tradicional, las violencias de género y mucho más.
PASIÓN HECHA ACCIÓN
April 25, 2017. Community Impact Coach Daniela writes about experience traveling with CAC to Ecuador to work with partners Futbol Mas.
Passion Made Action
Mi nombre es Daniela Gutierrez y con una experiencia única, en Perú y Ecuador; agradezco a Coaches Across Continents, que gracias a su programa CIC tuve la oportunidad de vivir 3 semanas inolvidables; donde compartí aprendizajes invaluables junto a cada persona, que me motivan siempre a seguir aprendiendo y compartiendo.
My name is Daniela Gutierrez and with a unique experience in Perú and Ecuador I am grateful to CAC. Thanks to their CIC program I had the opportunity to live 3 unforgettable weeks where I shared invaluable knowledge with each person, and which motivated me to always continue learning and sharing.
Ecuador-Guayaquil fue especial; porque vi niños participando de nuestro programa, profes de otras provincias que llegaron con tanta energía y esos deseos de cada uno, por compartir. Me gusto ver como exploraban su talento transformándolo en grandes ideas, creando juegos y dinámicas increíbles, el ultimo día todos y todas estabamos emocionados, agradecidos, orgullosos de seguir en la misma sintonía. Sé que se fueron con ganas de más, de seguir compartiendo en sus comunidades y generando impacto social. Solo sé que el gran equipo de Futbol más Ecuador seguirá contribuyendo en este proceso, generando más oportunidades para todo Ecuador.
Guayaquil, Ecuador was special because I saw youth participating in our program, teachers from other provinces that arrived with so much energy and the desire from each one to share. I loved to see how they explored their talent, transforming it into great ideas, creating games and incredible activities. On the last day everyone was emotional, grateful, and proud to continue to the same tune. I know that they all left with the urge for more, to continue sharing in their communities and creating social impact. I just know that the great team of Fútbol Más Ecuador will continue contributing to this process, generating more opportunities for all of Ecuador.
Recuerdo aquel 2014, mi primer año con CAC en Perú; desde entonces soy un agente de cambio social, utilizando como herramientas potentes juego y deporte; creando espacios donde cada vivencia se trasforme en una experiencia significativa. Logrando que las personas seas protagonistas de los cambios en sus comunidades y en sus propias vidas; buscando igualdad de oportunidades para todos y todas (‘todos somos impacto social’).
I remember in 2014, my first year with CAC in Perú. Since then I have been an agent for social change, using sport and play as powerful tools; creating spaces where every experience is transformed into something significant. Achieving that people are protagonists for change in their communities and in their own lives; searching for equality of opportunities for everyone – ‘we are all social impact’!
Siento personalmente la necesidad interminable de seguir aprendiendo siempre de los demás, cada persona es un mundo lleno de tanto, involucrándome, teniendo la convicción que no hay límites para seguir aprendiendo y que nunca debo parar. Sueño que en 2020 más y más personas alrededor del mundo, transformen su pasión en acciones que nos permitan construir un mundo mejor.
I feel personally the unending need to always continue learning from others; that every person is a world full of so much, including me, and having the conviction that there are no limits to learning and that I should never stop. I dream that in 2020 more and more people around the world transform their passion into actions that allow us to build a better world.
To Lima, to the Coast, to Huachipa!
April 12, 2017. CAC Process Consultant, Charlie Crawford, writes about CIC Daniela and program in Lima, Peru.
Arriving in Lima, Peru felt like stepping into both a foreign world and coming home at the same time. While our program would start on Monday, I was able to spend Saturday exploring the latest CAC office and surroundings before meeting up with fellow Coaches Across Continents staff Mark Gabriel, on Sunday. This opportunity led me to a bubble of Peruvian culture expressed along the jagged coastline spotted with public parks. Bike paths, futbol fields, and countless shady palm trees lined the winding cliffs and overlooked the beautiful Pacific Ocean. The highlight of this coddiwomple was stumbling onto the Park of Love, where mosaic tiles, colorful flowers and a massive statue of a loving couple holding each other in their arms helped create an atmosphere of comfort, connection and intimacy all in this beautifully publicly acknowledged space. Families, couples and friends would sleep, relax and spend their sunday in the best possible way here, in this paradise of a setting.
Every program is different. After working off-field in recent weeks, it was extraordinary to get back on the job with one of our strongest past participants and CIC’s, Daniela Gutierrez. Daniela has had consistent experience with CAC in past Peruvian programs which made working with her directly an obvious step. Currently working with Liga de Futbol Feminino e Integracion Social, Daniela used some of her connections to local schools and Sport for Social Impact individuals to organize a training in the neighborhood of Huachipa. This is an area no small distance away from central Lima. Through travels so far, I’ve found that many inhabitants of big cities tend to claim the ‘world’s craziest traffic’ title. While it’s my thought that no one has enough experience to empirically determine this, I’d be willing to consider Lima as a possibility. Public transportation is built around these monumental highways sunk into the hills and valleys of the cityscape. Within these highways are designated lanes for public buses and it was partially through these buses that we would travel to our venue every day (often with multiple taxis included in each direction of the trip). The training itself centered around a local school in Huachipa and the mothers of the students. Clearly new to the idea of Sport for Social Impact, we were able to introduce these parents to using sport in a way to address Gender Equity, Conflict Prevention and a number of other topics in our time together.
Mark & I met and began working together less than a year ago with CAC in Cambodia. In the months since, we have coached together and played in half a dozen countries. Starting this next stretch with him couldn’t have gotten off to a better start and working with our new partner, Futbol Mas, in the coming weeks only makes me more excited. Let’s go Lima! 
Encuentro Internacional de Educatión Física
August 7, 2016. This past week CAC Chief Executive Brian Suskiewicz was a key presenter and speaker at the Encuentro Internacional de Educatión Física in Lima, Peru hosted by the Ministry of Education. This international meeting is a space for exchange of experiences, ideas, practical implementation, and strengthening teaching practices. CAC was invited to present at this prestigious conference based on our partnerships and relationships within Peru with numerous groups such as UNICEF, various ministries, and other strong NGO implementing partners. One of our member partners, Fútbol Más, also presented their curriculum and methodology at the conference.
Attended by over 2,000 practitioners, teachers, coaches, and pedagogical members of the Ministry of Education and other government officials, the international conference will launch the new National Curriculum and aim to strengthen physical education and school sports across all levels of Basic Education (preschool, primary, and secondary). Registration for the conference exceeded 8,000 people, but space limited the attendees to only 2,000 individuals. The Ministry of Education live streamed the event for more inclusion. Presenters included experts in all fields of physical education from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Peru, and Spain, Chile.
During the conference Brian was interviewed by TV Peru (national television) and ANDINA, a news agency owned by the Peruvian government. On Thursday, newly sworn-in Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was shown on morning television with his cabinet exercising, sparking an interest in the physical education conference.
CAC’s methodology and curriculum has been well received and adopted by various government ministries, community partners, and NGOs during our year-round partnerships in the past several years. This presentation will further enhance this exchange of ideas and practices as well as strengthen our relationship with various Peruvian agencies that wish to create pathways for social change through sport.
Passion Transformed Into Action: The Story of ASK for Choice in Perú
May 17th 2016. CAC’s ASK for Choice leader in Lima, Daniela Gutiérrez, tells Peru’s ASK for Choice story as if it is 2026.
Although in English words don’t seem to rhyme
When a woman expresses ideas like this,
People see it as a crime.
We were born without apple,
with snake,
chained by the past,
shorn of the present.
In this world social classes are an illusion,
only from our mind confusion.
We are all unique and necessary,
Universal Rights, Humanitarian Rights.
Let’s make this life a “Choice party”
Bring our nation to the heights,
the indifference and inequality that women suffer,
makes no man tougher.
Over the years, we’ll tear down those fences.
Crush the status quo.
Nothing justifies the intolerance of our differences.
It all started with a group of brave, enthusiastic women, they were not sportspeople, some of them did love sports, however they shared something: all of them were ready to come together and join forces to help change this world of inequality, violence and lack of practice of values.
It all started on that Tuesday (May 3rd 2016), everyone full of energy and open to experiment, we started the training, and the fun started as well (that was all that mattered). With time questions emerged, deep and challenging about the issues they faced as women in their society, questions that found few or no answers. I could only encourage them to think about what they could do as women with all the capacity to change their reality. Then some clarity sprouted from their hearts in form of proposals “workshops with girls in El Agustino (and their dad’s as well), raise our kids respecting all human beings as equals, work with the rest of the moms of the community so they know they have a chance to decide…” And we left that encounter with the commitment to change our lifes.
In 2017, with twice as many women compared to the year before, 45 magical women with a great vibe! All of them sharing their powerful testimony about how playing the ASK for Choice games and all the conversations and group dynamics helped them to make some choices that would change their lifes, some of them even ventured to play the games with their families… The pieces started coming into place and things started to make sense for us…We were so excited!
8 years later, in 2024, Asked For Choice had grown so much in Perú, we no longer worked only with women from El Agustino, but with communities from all over the place, the Jungle, Los Andes and the coast. We decided to visit our awesome pioneers, what a great surprise we found: Outstanding leadership workshops for girls and women, women’s (and mixed) sports teams and leagues, art workshops and the best: women replicating the ASK for Choice experience with their community.
We continued our work, with more and more diverse women every time, similar in their desire to heal the world and make it a better place. We kept in touch with all of them and when we left they sent photos and videos of how well they were doing, the joyful experiences they were having, and in every place, no matter how far apart from each other, the same magic spread.
2026, 10 years from our origin, with this marvelous project that started with the pure intention of co-creating a fun space for women to play and share.
Not everything was easy. In many communities, when we went with the intention of giving women choices, we were faced with ignorance (both from man and woman), when we asked the questions, sometimes we found the same answers that created all this inequality, we thought that they might not understand, or that we were doing it all wrong…
However, at the end, even after all that struggle, we found a surprise that filled our hearts, in every community that benefited from the ASK for Choice movement (yes, now it had become a movement in Perú) we saw dads taking care of the household and taking kids to school, women directing massive building projects, boys dreaming to become chefs, girls playing with cars and soldiers. That was the best proof that all the effort from us, and especially from all the women in Perú had worked. Inequality and violence almost didn’t exist, it became a thing of a dark past. We felt so so happy and satisfied!
We only have one question now, for our present work: Are there any places remaining in Perú that still need this work? We have a very hard job ahead of us, finding these places would be almost impossible…
Self-Directed Learning Catches On In Peru
CAC’s Rubén Alvarado writes from Peru and our work with UNICEF Peru.
October 27th 2015. “No”. The word spoken with peaceful insistence, without the intention of pressuring or convincing. I take the risk, full of hope, and explain the meaning and the value of a “Yes” in the request that I’d just made. “No me gusta que me tomen fotos, me pongo brava” (I don’t like photos, I get angry). The answer followed by an implacable smile, implacable because of its honesty. And she walked away from me, and I walked away from her, joyfully resigned to my defeat, because she used her voice, did not impoverish herself in order to please someone, she let her freedom flourish.
Esmeralda, 7 years old, lives with her family across the street from the pitch in “El Agustino”, in Lima, Perú, where we held our trainings during the first week there, with various diverse organizations that use sport as a tool for social development, with magnificent results. She would cross the street every day in order to beautify our learning space, but also to teach us powerful lessons.
She surrendered to the game in the absence of answers, or when she did not not how to do what the game demanded, or even when she did not quite understand what happened at all. She rested, even if the group continued playing, if her body asked for rest. She played, even if the group rested, if her heart asked for play. Once, when the coaches discussed how to fix the world’s problems, she went ahead and made a colorful path made of cones, maybe to guide us in that venture. Another time she would pick up the cones that we would not use anymore, without us asking, and did it with such will that she even gathered the ones we would use in our next game! “Will we play more games today?” If she found a negative answer to this (daily) question, she would leave. Why would you stay in a place where all the fun has finished?
Quick reminder, we in CAC do not coach children directly, we coach coaches who educate children, Esmeralda joined the training spontaneously, lucky for us. In our Messi for Conflict Resolution game, participants make 2 lines and everyone has a number. The coach calls out one or more numbers, and the people with the called numbers have to run around their lines and arrive to the same or a different place inside of them, depending on the instruction. During it, Esmeralda seemed alert, she observed her teammates, went over, both mentally and with her fingers, the mathematical movements needed to succeed. Nora called out her number and she ran around her line towards her new, but well studied, place in the line. She knew exactly what to do, I listened when she spoke to herself. Right before arriving, her teammates (adult coaches) started telling her what to do, where to stand and how to do it. You might ask “what is wrong with that?”. Nothing, at all. We practice Self Directed Learning, because we believe that it honors our capacity and freedom to decide, even in these seemingly irrelevant scenarios, like arriving to your new spot in the Messi for Conflict Resolution game. I told you this long story, not to make someone wrong, but so we could have a shared image from where I could offer you something that, in my perspective, functions as a core component in the creation of spaces for Self Directed Learning to emerge: Trust.
We reflected on this issue with the group. Do we trust our kids enough to make their own choices? Do we think, maybe unconsciously, that we know better than them? How does this idea influence their learning? When does authority enhance growth and evolution? When does it not? How can we respect their freedom to decide at all times while coaching? And the reflection didn’t end, even when the trainings did. And we hope it doesn’t.
People learn better when they make their own decisions, on how to best resolve their problems and also, how to best manifest their intentions. Creating safe, intentional, containers for this active and explicit decision making process to occur, achieves equal relevance to their learning as the content learned. “The medium is the message”. In this way, the structure enables participants to use their voice at all times, not only when playing games or when reflecting on something, but at all times and in different forms of expression.
After our Child’s Rights session we ask the coaches to commit, through a promise, that they will always protect children from all the different types of violations that might affect them. This time we let the coaches write their own promise, so it felt closer to their hearts and minds. We gave them time and space for the magic to emerge. After some time we had 15 adults performing a short but potentially award winning play about violence and how to overcome it, that ended with them reading their promise out loud and our frenetic applause. We could have had told them what to do, but we didn’t, and that happened. Magnificent unexpected outcomes take place in safe, intentional Self Directed Learning environments, if we trust people and the process.
The group concluded this deep and fruitful session with gratitude and eagerness to continue exploring these topics, methods and models of education, and of course, to start playing the games in their communities. It feels like this program also helped them come closer as a network of sports for social development. Esmeralda got an acknowledgment as an honorary participant of our program. She left to school that day with an even bigger smile and dirt on her face and knees, evidences of major success.
I’d love to show you a picture of her but, well, you know that story…
