BPCT - Botswana Predator Conservation Trust

Seventh Annual Coaching for Conservation Football Camp a Huge Success!

29 July 2010

The Annual Coaching for Conservation primary school football camp was once again a huge success! Seven hundred children from 21 primary schools in Maun participated in this four-day event, from July 12th to 15th at the Sports Stadium. Over the first three days, children rotated through 15 football and conservation stations, learning new skills such as fast dribbling, heading and working as a team, and about the wildlife issues facing the Okavango Delta and Botswana. A mini football tournament was held on the final day of camp.

Since it first began in 2004, C4C has reached 3,000 primary school children in Maun and has helped reduce the gender gap in this community. For the first time since the annual camp was created, 50 percent of participating children were girls.

Preparations for the camp began months in advance and culminated with a week-long training session for football coaches and other volunteers in the bush of Botswana. This provided a venue for everyone to get to know each other, brush up on their C4C curriculum and see firsthand the wildlife that our work is based on.

Throughout the week, the C4C moto: "Respect Yourself, Respect each Other, and Respect your Environment" was integrated into all the drills and exercises. The skills and values learned by the children during camp week will help them become better football players, healthier individuals, better teammates and more responsible national and global citizens.
 

Many thanks to the generous support of our sponsor for the 2010 project, Investec Asset Management who made sure each child received a water bottle, a Coaching for Conservation t-shirt and a cap. Each school also received footballs.

This year marked a return to our roots as we received support from the Shorobe village football club. BPCT has sponsored this club for seven years, and this year, we engaged players from this club as coaches for our weeklong camp. The results were remarkable as the children immediately took to the coaches, and by the end of the week, these young men had become mentors to the children.

While many of the players from the Shorobe village football club had little to no coaching experience, they were mentored by a new member of the C4C team, Paul “Gibbo” Gibbons, who joined us from Florida. Gibbo is the director Coerver Coaching Southeast USA and has been coaching since 1990.

Another component of the camp week is the football coaching clinic, where all teachers are invited to learn new skills and coaching techniques that they can then bring back to their schools. The clinic was put on by Gibbo and the football coaches, on the evening of July 13th and was attended by almost all the schools.

Many new faces joined C4C this year, including numerous Batswana, who were involved in almost all aspects of the program. With the events over for 2010, we are now focusing all our energy in finishing the Conservation Education Centre and introducing our afterschool program to Maun schools to build a truly sustainable program for Botswana.