Expanding Youth Horizons in Brazil Through Rugby

We are here to tell you all about an exciting new initiative within our rugby programme which are our Big Saturdays. 

In Brazil, the schools work in shifts which means that each school has 3 different sets of children through its classrooms each day and this in turn means that we give our rugby classes to different groups of children in the mornings and afternoons so it has been a challenge to create a sense of being part of a single team or club. In order to remedy this, on August 3rd we started having special long rugby sessions on Saturday mornings open to all of the children and young people playing with us regularly and also open to guest players. In addition to the training, we also make it special by taking jucie, sandwiches and cakes along for them to enjoy together at the end.

Our main coach Greg Reeve has this to say "first we need to teach them how to play rugby, but not only this, we also need to teach values as many don't know how to work together, things like respect, ethics and being polite; these are the things that I need to teach them so that both the classes can be enjoyable as well as the spirit amongst the team. The importance of them coming to the Big Saturdays is that they can be themselves, they can play, tell jokes and can play with no barriers, just needing to respect each other and everything and in this way improve the community spirit and help them learn more about the sport and help the team grow day by day."

Rugby is a sport which is rooted in the practice on the pitch and off it of strong social and personal values and so it is very heartening for us to hear from one of our 14 year young men: "I got to know rugby through a friend, she would arrive at school with marks from the training sessionsand I always asked why she had all these bruises and she said it was from rugby and that I should come to see the project and the sport itself because it would be good for me and she kept insisting until one day I went; I liked the class, the coaches and the team so I decided to take it up. For me, rugby has a therapeutic rôle, before I was very explosive and rugby has helped me to control my anger: before for any little thing I would swear and get stressed and if anybody said something to me it led to a fight or an argument. Through rugby and what the coaches teach me I am improving, each day I improve a little bit and in addition rugby has helped me to get to know new people and places and this is very important to broaden my understanding of people and how they live differently. My aim is one day to become a professional player which is why I am very dedicated and also I want to keep growing each and every day."