Youth Development Through Sport
Our Youth Development Through Sport (YDS) programme involves a number of partners who are dedicated to taking sport to disadvantaged schools, communities and children who would not otherwise have the opportunity to partake in organised sports activities.
The project uses a 23 seater crafter bus (generously donated by Volkswagen) to travel around disadvantaged communities in the Nelson Mandela Bay area and the more rural communities within the Eastern Cape. The ‘Fun Bus’ travels with a mixture of sports instructors and general sports coaches. These coaching staff are made up of a mixture of locally employed staff and international volunteer staff.
The activities conducted by the ‘Fun Bus’ staff aim to reach children aged from 6 to 18. The 13 to 18 year olds receive a full curriculum of sports activities and life skills classes, teaching them about social and health issues. The children in the 6 to 12 age group participate in a ‘watered down’ version of the curriculum, focusing on the fun activities and sports coaching.
As well as visiting townships around the main cities and towns of Nelson Mandela Bay, the bus travels further, into the rural communities where there is arguably a greater need for this type of intervention. Traditionally, in the rural communities there is far less exposure to any type of life skills and awareness programmes or structured sports and recreational activities.
Background
The Youth Development through Sport (YDS) curriculum is a fun, interactive syllabus developed in partnership with several other Non Profit Organisations (NPOs) and the GTZ (German Technical Development Corporation).
The curriculum is aimed at addressing key health and educational issues as well as imparting important life skills. The curriculum has a large focus on HIV and AIDS awareness, but also addresses other topics such as resiliency, decision making, self esteem and gender equality.
The uniqueness of the curriculum is in its delivery. It is not a classroom based curriculum and it is delivered in an interactive manner using games and fun exercises to impart knowledge while also stimulate response, debate and discussion from the children it is delivered to. The programme combines energetic, fun activities with key current issues.
The curriculum is a 15-hour program that can be delivered to participants either daily or weekly and ends with a graduation of participants where they receive a certificate of completion.
Once completed with the participants, their understanding, awareness and attitude are assessed to record the impact of the curriculum. The aim is to raise awareness and to shift negative behavioural patterns. A secondary focus of this curriculum is to encourage peer-led behavioural change by motivating the participants to become opinion leaders in their social network of peers and siblings. The impact of this project, therefore, goes beyond its immediate beneficiaries and will positively influence peers and siblings who are not directly involved.
Objectives
The aim of this programme is to improve the skills, knowledge and awareness of both the child beneficiaries and the local coaches involved in the programme. The Youth Development Through Sport (YDS) curriculum is a powerful tool and an extraordinary means to develop life skills and encourage sustainable social change. The focus is on developing personalities, life skills and reducing at-risk behaviour by broadening youths’ horizons, bridging social divides, increasing health-related awareness and providing participants with the tools to help them make the right choices when facing social negatives.
Get Involved
Would you like to volunteer as a sports coach on this programme? You do not need to be a qualified or experienced coach, just hardworking and enthusiastic about sports. You will coach sports in the community alongside other volunteer coaches and discover the 'real' Africa.
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