Sport in Action - Tuesday 19th April 2011

The second day of work for us at our selected schools.

Today, Katondo Basic School was my destination; further afield than the Twyfane School which had been the focus of our work to date. The school itself is larger than Twyfane, with four single storey buildings, surrounding a yard.

We arrived at about 9am, after a walk of approximately 3 miles, through unrecognisable scrubland, and along dusty roads with no discernable names or features, other than the houses along them. Again, the majority of people were more than glad to wave, or say hi, with children running out of their homes to run alongside us.

Katondo Basic School

The field outside the school was rather quiet, with only younger children waiting for us; older children were inside the school, sitting exams, and they would arrive to play after about 10am.

As the students got together with the Sport in Action peer leaders, I took the opportunity to look at the area surrounding the school, and found an example of British charity work, on the water tower. This was donated by a past president of the Dunfermline branch of the Rotary Club.

The water tower donated by the former president of the
Dunfermline Rotary Club

The games played by the group followed a similar pattern to those already played on other days, and the children all took part without question. It was refreshing to see children play without becoming distracted by other things going on around them.

The morning session was split again, with older children taken to play netball and football, with younger children continuing to play group games, including with the parachute. It was during this time that I managed to take time out with Edina Bulaya, to speak with her about her work with Sport in Action.

Here is the video of that chat -

Children at KBS with Chris Caiger,
Nick Cheese, and Naomie Pitts

The Sport in Action work relies heavily on volunteers within each community, and without people like Edina Bulaya, who herself was a child receiving help from SIA, they probably couldn't exist. So, you can see, that the peer leaders are constantly looking for children within their groups who could be identified as potential peer leaders of the future.

After an aborted attempt to find our way back to Nkrumah alone, Clint and I rejoined the group before the lunch break at the college. Again, a chance to catch up with other groups about their mornings' work.

The afternoon was spent with the rugby team once more - this was my last session with them, so I took the chance to give Cyprian two Lancashire Rugby polo shirts that I had brought over. Hopefully, we will see two High Ridge School rugby players in Lancashire shirts soon.

On leaving the rugby lads at the end of the session, I couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed, as they seemed a bit quick to beg for new shirts, shorts and boots. As it was, I had already started arranging with the students to donate spare shorts that we had, as our kit that the university had given us included two pairs of black UCLan embroidered sports shorts.

Today, Rob James shared his thoughts on the work today, where he took basketball sessions at Twyfane School, and also his thoughts on the visit so far -