The graduation from the Skillz curriculum is a big deal for these kids. The way Grassroot Soccer has organized it makes the kids feel as though this is a big moment in their life; as though this is a great accomplishment they should be proud to have been involved in. It really does work out this way. The Skillz coaches work with the school to organize the graduation. They bring all the kids together in the courtyard of the school and run a graduation just like any other graduation would work. Parents and family members are all invited, and most of the staff as well as other students will come out and watch. The beginning of the celebration is used to let the parents know about the program. The coaches like to play “Find the Ball” with the parents. They line up about 6 or 7 kids in front of the parents, shoulder to shoulder with their hands behind their backs. As the kids sing a song, a ball is placed in one of their hands. The kids then pass the ball behind their backs between one another. At the end of the song the kids must stop passing the ball. The parents then try to guess who is holding the ball. The ball is supposed to represent HIV and the lesson of the game is that you cannot tell who has HIV just by looking at their face. The kids are really good at the game and the parents are stumped most of the time. This is one game the coaches use to give the parents an idea of what their children have been participating in over the last month.
The next part of the celebration is left to the kids. Many of them will perform songs, poems, jokes, and other things relating to the topics they have covered in their sessions with GRS. Most of the demos have to do with self confidence and awareness. One girl stood up and presented a poem about her face and the confidence behind it. Another girl sang a beautiful song about her life. A group of boys got up and sang a famous rap song about HIV and AIDS. Things like these really make you realize how much the kids appreciate GRS. It shows how much they have learned. This part of the graduation is my favorite.
The next part is really moving. The Skillz coaches ask one of the parents to stand up and say a few words. It means a lot to hear words from parents about Grassroot Soccer because the topics covered in the curriculum are not discussed everyday. One woman stood up and spoke about how her daughter was coming home each day and teaching the whole family about the things she had heard that day from her peer mentors. At another graduation a father stood up and explained how these sorts of things were not around when he was a child. It made him extremely proud to see how his community was beginning to understand how much of a problem HIV and AIDS are in their country. Most of the speeches are in Xhosa, but with the help of coaches translating it, we can get a good idea of what is going on.
After the parents have spoken and the Principal has said a few words in appreciation, the graduation ceremony is completed with each student coming up to the front to receive their certificate of Skillz completion. This three Skillz to win in the curriculum are: 1.) Know the game 2.) Build your team and 3.) Make your move. The certificates read, “On completion of the Skillz curriculum, [student’s name] is now certified to Make Their Move.” Through many Cheers, Kilos, smiles, and a few tears, the celebration is always a huge success. The principals are usually a bit hesitant to allow a two-hour period for the graduations in the middle of the day, but once it is over they appreciate the happiness surrounding the event.
After the graduation parents and children are free to eat snacks and juice that we bring for them. This is where our job comes in. Each time there is a graduation Sarah and I go with a coach to “The Sweet Connection” to pick up snacks. This place is unbelievable! It is a warehouse for just junk food. They have bags the size of a body pillow just filled with cheese puffs. They have racks upon racks of cookies and chips. I thought it was really cool at first but now I am getting a little sick of it. Anyways, we fill our carts with bags of chips, biscuits, and juice for the graduation and get on our way. We then have to drive the snacks all around the townships for the graduations. The perk of the job is definitely getting to see the celebrations for the kids.
This week has been quite slow. We are getting ready to host our holiday camps for children. This is where we invite groups of children to participate in our Skillz curriculum during their vacation week. The coaches run the sessions during the day. Our job as interns is to take care of the monitoring and evaluation for each camp. We will run focus groups with children and coaches to see how well the camps are working and what we need to change. This should be good fun but it will take some work to prepare. My responsibility will be the camp in New Brighton. The camps are held during the last week in September. Another job I have taken on is to run the organization of the next Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) Tournament which will be held at the end of November. They have done a couple of these already in Zwide. This time will be a little bit different because we will be running qualifiers in each town: Motherwell, New Brighton, and Zwide. Through these qualifiers we can get even more kids tested then before. The main VCT tournament will be held in New Brighton with 8 boys teams and 4 girls teams. At this tournament we will be more interested in testing members of the community because the children will have already been tested during the qualifiers. The whole thing is a little bit of a mystery right now, but soon enough I will be incredibly busy getting everything together.
This past weekend My housemates and I took a weekend away from PE. We stayed in a cool hostel in Tsitsikama called the Tube’n’Axe. Tsitsikama is a beautiful town between mountains and the ocean. We went bungee jumping at the world’s highest bungee site (216meters = 708ft = height of the Met Life building in New York) off a massive bridge. We then hiked along the ocean in Tsitsikama national park where we saw tons of dolphins and whales. We also went swimming under a waterfall. After a good night on Saturday we woke up and took a zip-line tour across Tsitsikama Waterfalls. It was an incredible weekend to say the least.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that has been reading the blog and keeping up to date with my work. I really appreciate it hope you are enjoying it. Please ask any questions you have about anything because I am glad to give further information. You can e-mail me at dfitzpat22@gmail.com or just post a comment below. I have been checking for comments so if you have anything to say just let me know.
