21 Feb 2019

Step Up International, a non-governmental organisation, which specialises in vocational, extra-curricular activities and remedial education has partnered with Kings Volunteer to teach facilitators the importance of sporting activities on children.

Speaking in an interview, Kings Volunteer International development manager, Tendekai Mukayi said they recently held a training workshop under the theme: Child engagement and behaviour management techniques through the use of sports activities.

Mukayi said some of the participants were from Thusang Bana, Hope World Wide Botswana and Magokotswane primary among others.

She said her organisation dealt with equipping, enabling and inspiring community leaders with skills on different games and activities to engage children.

She said through that, they were able to train leaders on different ways of making learning interactive, hence their main aim was to give children an opportunity to fulfil their potential in extra-curricular activities.

Mukayi said barriers of gender were broken as games were for both girls and boys, adding that playing was not a luxurious lifestyle, but a right for every child hence their objectives were to ensure that games were there for fun and education.

“Playing with children as facilitators breaks barriers between adults and children, making children to trust leaders through interaction. Sporting activities have physical, emotional and spiritual benefits on children,’’ she said.

She said it made learning more engaging as children could watch and learn from what they were seeing at a specific time.

Mukayi encouraged non-governmental organisations to organise such activities on a regular basis so that they could inspire children to do sporting activities regularly to keep healthy and for entertainment.

Programmes manager at Step Up International, Barcos Mbakwa said all the organisations which were chosen to take part in the training had a common goal of contributing towards child development, either academically, socially, emotionally or health wise.

He said he was optimistic that all participants would go back to their host organisations with a wide range of learned initiatives, skills or techniques that would help contribute towards educational and social advancements of children and youths.

Mbakwa applauded Kings Volunteer’s expertise as they have developed a sports participation model which was inclusive and encouraged children to get involved, be active, have fun and learn regardless of their abilities or affinity for sport.

He said Step Up aims to build confidence in children as they offered them skills to cope with stage fright.

He said most children at primary schools failed because they were unable to approach teachers for consultations. He added that if they practiced it would be easier for them to ask for help from teachers.

 “We also teach them about health and environment because they should know about eating a balanced diet as well as to take care of the environment. Therefore, children should be taught about food handling to avoid non-communicable disease,” he said.

He further said they also taught children about economic empowerment in order for them to choose career paths at an early age.

He said children should know that there were a lot of other professions such as journalism and engineering other that than the common careers such as teaching and nursing which they were exposed to on a daily basis.

A participant, Annah Pheko, was thankful for the training, saying it had given her the opportunity to use games to boost self-esteem and confidence in her pupils as a guidance and counselling teacher.

She said the games were fun and interactive and could be used in classes for pupils to be active and communicate without fear. ENDS