By Jenn Bell | Program Development Manager
December at SWB Kampala means many things. From squeezing in the last games of the season and competing in year-end tournaments, to taking time to celebrate hard work with teammates, to studying for final exams, our program participants are hard at work both on and off the pitch. And while each of SWB’s six, year-round programs incorporate academic support into their daily activities, the Kampala program stands out in terms of their extensive academic programming which is offered year round to our participants, all of whom are out of school youth.
More than 350 of SWB Kampala’s participants come to Uganda from countries including Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, and South Sudan. As newcomers to Uganda, many face significant financial, language, and cultural barriers when trying to enroll in formal schools meaning that our program has grown to provide more than soccer practices and games—our staff also facilitate daily academic and life skills classes through our community center, with an emphasis on developing critical English language skills.
What is unique to our classroom however, is that it exists beyond the walls of our community center and continues into a living, field-based classroom—the football pitch! When it comes to supporting the English Language Development (“ELD”) of our participants, we’re able to revisit our classroom curriculum on the field, reviewing key concepts or vocabulary and integrating them into soccer drills and activities that have been adapted for language learning. Students are able to practice their listening and speaking skills as well as try out new words, tenses, or concepts in the safe space created by their team. In taking our learning from the typical classroom and onto the field, we are able to complement traditional classroom studies with opportunities to practice and use those skills in real scenarios.
The warm-up game, “Head, Shoulders, Knees, Cone” is one of our favorite ELD-focused activities that can easily be incorporated into a practice. As coaches shout out parts of the body (“Arm! Foot! Shoulders!”) students must touch that part of the body. When coaches shout, “cone” students then race against their teammates to get a cone. While the drill appears basic, it can also be scaled up for students depending upon their language level. Coaches can integrate new vocabulary (for example: “LEFT arm! RIGHT foot! BOTH shoulders!”) or introduce more complex concepts such as ‘sequence words’ (“FIRST touch your left arm, THEN touch your right foot, LAST touch both of your shoulders!”). Here, Coach Delphine runs “Head, Shoulders, Knees, Cone” for players on our girls soccer team.
As we wrap up the last of our final exams and end-of-season team celebrations, we are already looking forward to the start of a new school year and soccer season. Through individual donations and supporters like you, our program has been able to significantly increase our support for refugee youth in 2017 and to continue to train our mentor-coaches to support our players in developing important English language skills.
With your support, we can continue to provide more than 350 newcomer youth in 2018—5 days per week, 44 weeks per year—with direct access to mentoring, academic and ELD courses, homework help, workshops, and soccer equipment, practices and games, in addition to meaningful opportunities to connect with teammates and coaches. Thank you for Playing it Forward for Soccer Without Borders!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
