STOKE CITY'S globetrotting Community Coach Warren Leat is back on his travels again . . . having flown out to Kenya to spend a week delivering the Premier Skills Course Phase Two.
Following the success of a similar visit to Senegal in the Autumn, Warren has joined up with Adam Lea from Portsmouth and Head Coach Gareth Prosser from Wolverhampton Wanderers for this latest trip.
He will be keeping stokecityfc.com in touch with the whole experience of coach education in Kenya on a daily basis. Here is his account of day two:
Kenya Day Two
Today which was the first official day of the course was split into two sections. In the morning, the participants completed some course introduction tasks including devising a code of conduct, establishing course expectations and preparing for the opening ceremony in the afternoon.
The day started at 8.00am in the classroom with the participants including the Malawi group who have arrived in the early hours of the morning. The morning included workshops on the subjects mentioned above, and the type of delivery was very much tailored to the participants playing a major role in the running of the workshops.
After we have devised with the participants help, a code of conduct, and course expectations, the final part of the morning was down to completing a display board each for the opening ceremony. They took great pride in doing this and had brought photographs, written testimonials and explained clearly how and why their community project was a success. In addition, the group was split into groups and they had to prepare a practical for the opening ceremony as they would be coaching some local school children.
The next task saw the participants learn how to answer questions from the media who would be at the opening ceremony. We conducted role play in pairs and at the end of the workshop the participants were able to answer all of the set questions in the time allocated.
After lunch we went to the venue for the opening ceremony. This was to be held at the British High Commissioner's residence in Nairobi. In very nice surroundings, the opening ceremony saw speeches from the British High Commissioner, British Council, Premier League and finally the permanent secretary for the Ministry of Sport for Kenya who officially opened the event. Then the participants split into two groups with Kenya and Uganda speaking to the media and guests about their display boards and Botswana and Malawi running a coaching session with the children. This was then switched round so that all participants had the opportunity to coach and showcase their project.
The day passed off very well finishing at 6.00pm, but with a feel good factor by all involved. What was interesting was that the participants were already linking their projects to issues within their communities. For example AIDS prevention, Drugs, Young People dropping out of school, were just some examples of how they were talking social issues through Football.
Well, after a very long day, and having Crocodile for dinner we resume tomorrow at 8am, where the subject is Inclusion.
