2005 Dream Camps

The 2005 Dream Camps (Nature and Sports Camps), supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and NPO Global Sports Alliance (GSA) took place near Nairobi, Kenya, providing sports equipment, professional coaching and health & environmental education to children in developing countries.

Dream Camps 2005 took place throughout August at the Sadili Oval Sports Club and is both the largest and most successful training camp in Central and Eastern Africa providing sports and environmental education for children.

Professional Kenyan athletes and teams joined in the program that offers a sporting chance to the children and hopes to help develop the leaders of tomorrow. GSA sent tennis coach, Katsuya Otsu to help provide coaching and he was also able to present soccer and tennis equipment collected from GSA Members, Nike Japan, Toyobo and Urawa Sports Club to the program coordinator, Dr. Liz Odera. Equipment was also donated by GSA Kenya to St. Andrew’s School, which was the location for the Kisumu Tennis and Soccer Camp on 18 August.

Nairobi Tennis Camp 1-12 August
An opening ceremony and press conference was held on 1 August attended by UNEP and the coaches from Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burundi, the United States and Japan. Each day’s training schedule ran from 7am to 4:30pm,and with 117 children taking part from a number of African countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Sudan and Rwanda, instructions had to be translated between Swahili, English and French.

From the second week, teacher from UNEP visited the camps to educate the children about health and environmental issues that affect them. In discussion groups the children learned about GSA’s “Ecoflag Movement” and the importance the natural environment plays in allowing them to enjoy their favorite sports. The Kenyan cricket team and former national soccer coach also dropped in to talk about their experiences in sport and motivate the children taking part.

Nairobi Soccer Camp, 10-12 August
The three-day soccer camp took place in Kibera, near the Sadili Oval and featured the national team coach, with lessons and a tournament for the more than 300 children taking part.
The Kibera slum is the largest in Kenya. Housing is ramshackle and lacking in public hygienic facilities, with garbage heaped by the roadside. Sewage is exposed and malaria an imposing threat. Playing sport in bare feet exposes the children to possible injury and infections and the environmental message put across centered on immediate factors affecting the children, such as the importance of keep playing areas clean and the fact that injury or infection would prevent them from playing their favorite sports.

Kisumu Tennis and Soccer Camp, 18 August
80 children took part in the Kisumu Tennis and Soccer Camp in West Kenya. Facilities at a local school were used, where courts were handmade but very well constructed. To those that think of tennis as an exclusive sport, tennis in Africa may seem an unlikely concept, but the camp showed that with a home-made court and sharing equipment, anyone can take up the tennis challenge.

The children in all the camps took great pains to look after the equipment. Without these, they wouldn’t be able to enjoy sport and after classes they always counted the tennis balls carefully. For these children, looking after these valuable resources is second nature-an appreciation lost in many other parts of the world.

Many of the children taking part come from areas affected by poverty and even civil war. For these children sports plays an even bigger part and is the force behind the United Nations declaring this year the “International Year of Sports and Physical Education.”
Sports is not just about physical health, but the fun and challenge of sport can bring spiritual development to all-rich and poor alike, on expensive developed facilities, or on makeshift courts and playing fields. Sport can reach through divides and even bring a smile to those affected by trauma. For both the coaches and the many children that took part, the Dream Camps provide an invaluable and memorable experience and clarify the significant and positive role that sport can play in education, social, economic and sustainable development.

Report by Katsuya Otsu
NPO Global Sports Alliance (GSA)

LINKS:
Dream Camps 2004: http://www.g-forse.com/event/DreamCamps.html
Sadili Oval Sports Club: http://www.sadili.com/
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) http://www.unep.org/sport_env/
International Year of Sport and Physical Education (IYSPE)
http://www.un.org/sport2005/

LINK :
Sadili Oval