Much more than games in Senegal
November 2008 — The correlation between sports programs and youth development has long been known within the U.S. But for developing countries such as Senegal, the benefits of such programs are still being discovered. A group of educators from UMass Boston seeks to change that with the International Sports Programming Initiative, which recently received a $174,763 grant from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs.
This initiative is a collaborative effort between UMass Boston’s Center for African, Caribbean and Community Development (CACCD), and the Division of Athletics, Recreation and Special Projects under the direction of Professor Jemadari Kamara, chairman of the Africana Studies Department and founding director of the CACCD, and Charlie Titus, vice chancellor of the Division of Athletics & Recreation, Special Programs and Projects. “I think it is an important partnership for UMass Boston. It has an international reach, which is exciting,” says Titus.
The initiative builds on the successful Youth, Education and Sports (YES) with Africa program, established in 1999 by UMass Boston. YES with Africa is a multiethnic, coeducational sports and leadership development experience serving over 1,500 boys and girls in the West African countries of Senegal and Benin. The goal is to create an increased long-term capacity for helping girls and boys use sports as a tool for personal maturation, economic wellbeing, educational growth, and health. “Building up an interest in youth development in the country helps lay the foundation for larger development,” explains Titus. But despite YES with Africa’s success, there have been several hurdles Kamara now hopes to clear: “We’ve usually had a limited amount of time to work on staff training and development in Senegal. This initiative will allow us to actually show them how we do things here.”
The initiative begins with Kamara traveling to Senegal in December 2008 to work with key sports federation representatives, community groups, and athletics organizations to design future workshops and select a delegation of six Senegalese trainers and educators to come to UMass Boston in March 2009. While in Boston, the chosen delegates will participate in workshops designed to enhance their skills in coaching, project organization and management, and entrepreneurship, among others. They will also observe men’s and women’s intercollegiate athletics at UMass Boston, and will meet with other public and private athletic and economic development institutions in the Greater Boston area, such as the Boston Celtics and the Kraft Group. Kamara also anticipates the delegation will participate in Ohio University’s Institute for the African Child conference.
As a result, the Senegalese will deepen their understanding of sports and society in America and learn skills that will help them develop similar programs back home, which is the ultimate goal of the initiative. “We want to increase the capability for self-sustainability. Those kinds of things clearly will help them in terms of making the infrastructure stronger,” says Titus.
Upon their return to Senegal, the delegates will implement the techniques and skills they have acquired in the U.S. by creating a series of workshops that will cover a variety of strategies and techniques to help promote youth development throughout the country. As Kamara sums up: “The whole concept is training trainers to train other people.” It may be a mouthful, but the results should be quite clear once the project gets underway. “This is really an investment in the future of Africa,” says Kamara.
By Emily Sullivan, Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.
[Contact: Jemadari Kamara: jemadari.kamara@umb.edu]