Teaching Youths English Literacy Through Football

With the program focus being in schools, the first quarter of 2017 monitoring and evaluation meeting was held at VAP offices. The aim of the meeting was to evaluate and get updates from coaches regarding different programs taking place in various schools and community centres since the month of January. Led by master coaches and centre contact coaches, the meeting discussed the challenges and successes that have been encountered throughout the program and came out with mitigation plans to counter the challenges experienced.The newly recruited coaches had an opportunity to talk about their experiences."Am happy to be teaching back to my former school what was taught to me when i was there." Said 19 years old Merik.

VAP Hosts Swiss Academy for Development

On its mission to Nairobi, Swiss Academy for Development paid a courtesy call to VAP offices to witness firsthand the youth empowerment projects. The four hour visitation focused largely on Mrembo project and the usage of football as the conduit for social change addressing sexual reproductive issues and rights, and its linkage to employability skills through vocational trainings i.e. pastry , hair and beauty courses. Being a non-profit, non-governmental organization not affiliated with any political party or religious group, SAD has a considerable expertise in promoting interactive, participatory approaches to non-formal and life skills education applying a playful approach to learning.

10 local coaches whose teams have been participating in the Double Club program had an opportunity to participate in 3 day workshop organized by VAP coaches. The workshop focused on teaching techniques and tactics of basic football drills as well as the combination of English literacy and language. The coaches were trained on simple but powerful football drills that suit their age categories of players which included: shooting, passing, dribbling and scoring. Additionally, coaches were trained on goalkeeping techniques and how to generally handle youth players on matters on and off the field.

Each day there was a session on Double Club, the combination of football and education. Coaches were taught how to use football and instill education and literacy aspects to their respective football trainings using double club manuals, booklets that address football, education and literacy. All the participating coaches were awarded with certificates as a confirmation to certifying them as Double club coaches.