ToC

Team cheer at the ToC.

This week GRS Kimberley had its first ToC – Training of Coaches – in a year and Trevor and I got to help plan and deliver parts of the training. This particular training was for Generation Skillz, the GRS HIV prevention and life skills curriculum designed for South African youth aged 15 – 19. Like our other programs (Skillz 1.1 and Skillz Street), Generation Skillz uses soccer language, metaphors and activities to address behaviors that drive the spread of HIV in southern Africa.

Isaac, Big Eyes, Thembi and Vanessa during an energizer.

I promise to talk more about Generation Skillz in a later blog, but what I really want to delve into right now is the ToC itself. What I liked best about the ToC was that the trainers (Mr. D. and Ali from Cape Town) didn’t just show coaches the new guide and walk them through how to deliver a practice. Although they did that a little bit, they also led a bunch of activities that encouraged coaches to really think about their own behavior as a coach and in the fight against HIV.

Some of the most interesting activities were those that tackled the subject of gender norms. During one such activity, the guys and the girls were each asked (in front of the other gender) what was the best part about being a guy/ girl, what was the hardest part about being a guy/ girl, etc. The responses from the guy coaches were, for the most part, what I expected (the best part of being a guy was that they were stronger, they could go anywhere they wanted without feeling in danger, they could have multiple sexual partners and no one would really judge them). And while the responses given by the girl coaches didn’t surprise me exactly, they did make think about the extent to which I come from a totally different place than our coaches.

Some of the guy coaches - Sonko, Isaac and Bucs - listening
to the girl coaches talk about being a girl.

It all started when Thembi asked our female coaches, “What is the best part about being a girl?” For almost a minute there was silence. I don’t know if this was because the coaches felt uncomfortable sharing in front of the guys or if it was because they really couldn’t think of anything.

Then Sis Debs spoke up, “For me the best thing about being a girl is that I am a mother. And not just for my own child, but all people see me as a mother.” This got the conversation rolling. Everyone wanted to give their two cents about how important it was and how they “so wanted” to be a loving wife and mother.

What struck me about this conversation was how apparent it was that motherhood was not just prized but also the ultimate goal for some of our coaches. I don’t think there is anything wrong with their point of view and I’m sure there are people in the States that feel the same way, but for me this conversation was striking because I want so much (i.e. a stable career, to spend a year in Africa, travel the world, etc) before I even start thinking about motherhood.

Coaches participating in the activity My Suporters.

Another session I really enjoyed was the “safe sex” session that was led by Mr. D. He started it off with the following scenario:

I have lived in the same place all my life and I know that everyday at 3:00 there are no cars in the street. So tomorrow it is safe for me to put on a blindfold and cross the street at 3:00.

Everyone in the room agreed – because there was still a very slight chance that Mr. D. would get hit with a car, he should not cross the street blindfolded. Mr. D. said that “safe sex” worked the same way. You can take as many precautions as you want to (condoms, birth control, one mutually faithful partner) but at the end of the day sex is still a risk. In closing Mr. D. requested that we start using the term “safer sex” instead of “safe sex.” He also suggested that, for our own sake, we always ask ourselves “what if?” before engaging in sex or any other risky behavior. I don’t think he was telling us to live our lives in a box, but I think his analogy raised a good point;] – if you aren’t ready for that “what if?” then maybe you are not ready for sex (or any other “risky” behavior).

Another teamwork activity.

But my favorite parts of the ToC were the sessions where Mr. D. talked to the coaches about coaching. One afternoon he asked all of us to make a paper airplane that had to fly from one end of the room to the other. This was a hilarious activity because it quickly became apparent that coaches in Kimberley had not spent hours upon hours making paper airplanes when they were younger (like my brother and I had). But this didn’t stop them from being creative – I saw some of the strangest looking paper airplanes I’ve ever seen that afternoon. Unfortunately most of their planes didn’t fly very well, but I was happy to show a lot of the girls how I made my plane. At the end of the activity, every coach had successfully thrown a plane from one end of the room to the other.

The point of this activity was simple; every Practice in the curriculum has goals and at the end of the day GRS doesn’t care how you reach the goals, but you need to reach them. And if you don’t succeed it is perfectly acceptable to go back and try again. And it is never wrong to ask for help. In closing Mr. D. said that it was not his job, or Ali’s job or an intern’s job to make the coaches perfect; it was our job to give the coaches the information so that they could perfect themselves.

All in all, this ToC helped me realize that I don’t have to be perfect. That things don’t have to go exactly to plan in order to work. That people will not always agree with what I say and do. And that I shouldn’t strive to be perfect, but that I can strive to be better. 

Our coaches!