By Jonathan Hannay | Project Leader
João is 19 and he graduated this year from being one of our youth monitors to becoming an assistant community coach who is passionate about playing and coaching rugby especially to children and young teenagers, both boys and girls and here he tells us a bit about giving class and what it means to train boys and girls together:
"I like giving new variations because when we do the same drills, the kids know them already. With variations they are challenged by new rules and ask lots of questions and they are much more creative.
When the girls train together with the boys they show that they are equal to the boys and break down machismo; the boys respect the girls more and also their opinions. By training with the girls, the boys change their posture with girls not only at rugby but in the rest of their lives and they start respecting them more little by little."
João has always been a leader and now that has been recognised on a very big stage: he has just been selected as a Michael Johnson Youth Leader after massive competition from all over the world. Later this month, he will fly to Dallas, Texas where he will join 11 other young leaders from all over the world who are using sport to help transform their communities. They will spend a week at the with Michael Johnson at his High Performance Centre where they will recieve coaching and mentoring sessions to help them develop and be able to be ever more effective and after going back to their own communities will receive a small stipend and ongoing mentoring so they can achieve their aims. Here is what João had to say:
"When I heard that I had been selected, I was really pleased and emotional. I shall go to the United States with a very open mind and over the week there I expect to gain much more experience and knowledge that I can bring back and share here with my students and co-workers. Even though the other 11 young leaders on the course will be from other countries, I am sure that we shall be able to communicate - we always find a way to communicate. I shall want to know about them and their communities and what experiences they have and how they work."
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