In Partnership with the Football League Trust and NPower
The team at Doncaster Rovers Community Sports and Education Foundation are preparing to travel to Africa to share their skills and experience with a group of young people in a village in Mombasa, Kenya.
The Rovers Education Foundation, the Football League Trust and NPower have teamed up with the charity Education for Life to launch the Rovers Go Wild Africa 2013 Project. The project is aiming to use football as a vehicle to engage and interact with communities who share similarities despite being thousands of miles apart.
As part of the project the Rovers Education Foundation has received funding to run a volunteering trip to Likoni in South Mombasa in June and will be taking five of their Doncaster based students with them to share the experience.
During the visit the team from Rovers, along with two members of staff from NPower, will be undertaking many different activities including providing out of school activities for local children, supporting the teens with leadership training, helping with some teaching and supporting maintenance work on the school building in Likoni, which is run by the Education For Life charity.Set up and managed by a Doncaster couple, the charity started out as a small organisation set up to feed local children. It has grown throughout the years and now the charity have set up and run the school and orphanage named Tumaini.
Jenna Scully, Education Manager at the Rovers Education Foundation, said: “We are delighted to have received funding for the Rovers Go Wild Project. We have offered five of our students the opportunity of a lifetime to take part in this international partnership. All our learners could apply and were interviewed for a slot on our team – although all our students will be involved in fundraising to create a legacy for the project.
“The lucky students who we are taking with us will meet similar aged young people from Likoni and engage in a skill swap. Each of the five students who will be visiting Likoni will be accompanied by a staff member from the Rovers Education Foundation who will mentor them throughout the trip and in addition our staff will be sharing examples of best practice gaining new skills which could influence future generations in Doncaster.
“We are hoping that our students will learn from the spirited young people in Africa, who have a fantastic positive mentality.
“Education for Life is a registered charity and runs solely for the purpose of helping the community. We have chosen them to be the focus of our development trip as we have direct links with their team and we feel the skills and expertise we can offer will directly benefit the charity and the community it serves.”
The Rovers Education team have set up a just giving page and are asking for contributions in order to create a legacy from the visit. All donations that are received will directly benefit those living in the Likoni village. Just 50 pence will buy school stationary that will get a young person through school for a full year, £240 will sponsor a child’s education, accommodation and food for one year and £800 will buy a cow which will provide the community with a valuable source of income for years to come. Visit http://www.justgiving.com/rovergowild
Glyn Davies, Education for Life Co-founder, added: “This is an exciting and positive initiative. This year we have the largest group of young people from the Children's Home moving into the Halfway House, since we opened it two years ago.
“We believe that having their thoughts stretched by people trained to deliver aspirational and motivational insight will be hugely beneficial, not only to them, but also to spread to their peer.
“There is a huge passion for football, not just in Likoni, but nationwide and we believe that using a passion to teach life skills and academics can reach more youngsters than regular syllabus work ever could. It digs deep inside a person and draws out of them what they never knew was there, in addition to developing skills they already have.”