Friend of EduSport has gone a step further in supporting education in Zambia. Another under-privileged community has been identified by our partners on the ground to be included onto our sponsorship scheme in 2011.

From January we will provide school fees for five new Peer Leaders, in return for 2 hours a week voluntary service in their community. We will also support the community coordinator to ensure the peers have a framework in place as they develop their leadership skills to impart life skills to other youth.  All peer leaders are trained by the Edusport Foundation and will progress up their leadership pathway as well as being given opportunities to work with fellow youth in other communities around Zambia.

One of our charity trustees is currently in Zambia and has written of her meeting with our new community:

"During the Go Sisters meeting I was introduced to Susan Banda, the site co-ordinator from our new FOE community in Ngombe. The community is based in northern Lusaka and has been part of the Go Sisters programme since 2006. During the afternoon myself, Kelvin and Susan went to the site to meet the peer leaders and look at the activities taking place.

On arrival we were greeted by a number of girls who had come to set up the training area, every afternoon two large holes are dug, the netball bases are collected from storage and the court is made. Although Susan co-ordinates the site, there is a great deal of activity lead by the other peer leaders.

When all 8 had arrived I spoke to them about the new proposed relationship between their community of Ngombe and Friend of EduSport. This involved reiterating the expectations of being an EduSport peer leader as well as stating that we would aim to provide 5 students plus a site co-ordinator with sponsorship as of January 2010. The girls we ecstatic when they heard this, and were overjoyed when given a new set of football jerseys as a welcome to the Friend of EduSport sponsorship program.

At this point we invited all of the peer leaders and Susan to a peer leader workshop in Kalingalinga the following week. This would provide some time and a good opportunity to identify those peer leaders who would benefit from the sponsorship program.

Thursday 12th August at Kalingalinga basic school saw the gathering of 26 peer leaders from both Ngombe and Kalingalinga, the workshop, lead by Hayley Barr, covered fitness and how to structure sporting sessions. It was an excellent session where the level of interaction from the peer leaders excelled expectations and allowed those from both communities to gain a greater appreciation of the work that occurs at the different sites. The first half of the session involved some classroom discussion and students were set the task of planning a session that took a ‘lesson objective, beginning with the introduction of a skill, two progressions including increasing pressure to the situation, and then a conditioned game. After the students had finished planning, the workshop was taken outside where they delivered their sessions, applying all that had been learned inside.

Afterwards, we returned inside for the plenary, which was then finished off in true Zambian style with over an hour of singing, dancing and the performance of a small sketch highlighting the issues around HIV/aids and alcohol. Kelvin then closed the morning by highlighting the importance of the continued relationship between the two communities in order for progress to be made."

If you are interested in sponsoring a peer leader from Ngombe, or indeed any of our communities, please see our sponsorship page where you will find all the details you require to take your next steps to make a real impact to the life of youth in Zambia.

 Now there are more ways to follow FoE online....