It's (almost) exactly a year since we featured our Pioneer Caro from Zambia for the first time on Club of Pioneers - supporting her so simple idea: bringing underprivileged kids together for environmental education by means of...yep, playing soccer!Now, again, we are in the middle of soccer season - the EM (European Championship) is keeping us all busy. Time for us to have a second look at Caro's project - more so since for me she fits perfectly into our new series changemakers!I met Caro last week in Berlin when she updated me on what's going on with her "soccer clinic": it's success, the changemaking influence and Caro's further vision for it:
In the past year we have been working with a primary school (Grade 6 pupils). We have weekly sessions which are held every friday afternoon. The sessions are held at the school in the class room where the children are asked questions about nature, the environment, tourism and wildlife. Each week we have a different topic. The session is held for 30 minutes then the children form two teams to play football and compete with each other. During the match (break sessions) the children play a quiz game and win prizes. About 90 kids come to the sessions regularly, learning most times through hands-on experiences:

 

Last Friday e.g. the children planted trees at the school and will be responsible for looking after them that way learning how to take care and protect the environment.

 

The programme that we have with the children is a pilot project which we have now run for a year succesfully. Our next goal is to use this programme as a case study to develop it into a project for other schools. We are developing a project proposal with the School, Sport in Action NGO and in consultation with Environmental Council of Zambia and the Football Association of Zambia.

My long term goal is to see the project being implemented in other schools by incorporating sport and environmental education. In Zambia football is a phenomena, right now everyone is talking about the Euro Cup 2008. Football t'shirts of famous clubs are teams are sold openly in markets and on the street. The football 2010 world cup which will take place in South Africa has hightened the level of interest in the sport.Read more about the project and the situation in Zambia.
Caro amongst her team