Coaching in Cape Town
By Cathleen Graham
I went to South Africa as a volunteer sports trainer and physical educator with Sport Coaches’ Outreach (SCORE), a non-profit Cape Town-based organization dedicated to developing athletics in historically disadvantaged, predominantly black and rural communities throughout South Africa. The purpose is to use sports to teach life skills, empower people, strengthen community, and promote reconciliation.
Since 1991, SCORE has actively recruited volunteer sports trainers from around the world. Most SCORE volunteers have come from western Europe, but more recently the organization has drawn increasing numbers of volunteers both from within South Africa and from other countries in the region.
Generally, volunteers work in underequipped primary schools, supporting physical education programs, training teachers and coaching various sports. Most of these schools have no qualified physical education teachers, and physical education is often not part of the daily schedule. Equipment is scarce and facilities are sub-standard.
SCORE aims to change this situation by establishing new athletic opportunities for underserved children, as well as for youth and adults. Its programs are sustained by local leadership, participation and ownership.
Of course, life as a SCORE volunteer has its challenges. Working in a remote rural area, where the language and culture are unfamiliar, you may sometimes feel isolated and misunderstood. The heat alone is enough to leave you physically exhausted.
A hot climate means rising early, gathering your sports equipment for the day, then heading off to one of the local schools or colleges where you’ll meet and train three or four teachers to be physical educators. It is likely that they’ll also teach you, whether it’s cricket, games with movement and song, or strategies for the rugby pitch. After school, you might head to the main community field, where you’ll likely encounter some children who recognize you from the school. You’ll see them playing pick-up basketball and wonder if they could get a league started. Then, there is a short community meeting to discuss the upcoming cricket tournament. Lastly, you might make a quick call to a fellow volunteer whose host community is joining in the cricket tournament this weekend. At the end of the day, you return to your host family.
To date, SCORE has placed more than 400 volunteers in more than 100 communities in South Africa and has recently extended its reach, launching programs in Namibia and Zambia. It is creating new spaces for people to come together and work together, while redefining traditional patterns of association and helping to change mainstream perceptions about the many racial and ethnic groups living in South Africa.
A year in South Africa gave me a glimpse of the people, lives, events and places shaping the transition to a new South Africa, helping me to better understand apartheid and its legacies. Through the eyes of two host families, one black and one white, I began to see that nowadays, the struggles of each may be more alike than different. AV
Cathleen Graham received her B.A. in history and physical education at Queen’s University and her M.A. in international development at Dalhousie. She is now pursuing an MSc in public health and epidemiology with the University of London’s distance program in the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. graham_cathleen@hotmail.com. To learn more about SCORE, contact Willem Vriend at the European Recruitment Office in the Netherlands: score.europe@planet.nl