A new year has begun with new possibilities and challenges. The soccer school started up again on January the 12th and we have a very exciting spring ahead of us! As you know we now have a new ”leader principal”, Mouck E´tienne. We have also been working on some organizational changes which might lead to two ”leader principal”. Our hopes are that these changes will lead to a spreading of the workload and the responsibility for the leaders in charge. Since most of the work is done on voluntary basis it is not always easy to find people that have both time and strength to work for the school. We are hoping to bring in some new leaders that can work both as coaches and with our social activities. It can not be stressed enough what an amazing group of leaders Gothia already has. Without their seemingly endless enthusiasm and willingness for hard work, the school would fall apart. They are amazing!
At the beginning of the month we had a meeting with all the leaders were we talked about the training program for 2009. Every year a very thorough program is worked out for every age group. Every month has its own theme; in the month of January the focus lice on physic for example. Since the school has activities on three different annex this is a good way to make sure that the work is synchronized and that each child gets the accurate basic soccer knowledge. The goal is to make it easier to bring in new children and leaders and have a clear read tread in all our activities.
Special for this year is that we are working to make it possible to bring a team to Sweden to take part of Gothia Cup this year. 16 fourteen year olds and four leaders have been picked out to do this big trip. Apart from the enormous paperwork that we are working with, we have also made a comprehensive training program that will work towards getting the team prepared for this big adventure. This is not only going to be a soccer trip but much focus will be put on cultural exchange. We volunteers will have special classes with Swedish culture, geography, history etc. We will also have some language classes in Swedish and English. The kids will also work with Congolese plays and traditional music. At this very moment we are trying to get the necessary papers to take the kids over to the Swedish embassy in Kinshasa to apply for visas. As you can tell this is not a small project we have in front of us. We are going to need all your prayers and good thoughts!
Unfortunally our little group of volunteers has become one less person. Due to persistent injuries Karl-Johan have been forced to leave the project and go back to Sweden for rehabilitation. Karl-Johan has been a big asset for the project and we are very sad that he had to leave us. He will continue to work with the project from Sweden and will among other things work with the preparations for the team that will come in the summer. We wish Karl-Johan the best of luck and hope for a quick recovery. You are in our thoughts Kalle!
All the best from a sunny and warm Congo!
Greetings from the soccer volunteers through Sofia
