Education through sport (ETS) and Non Formal Education (NFE) Experiences
I’ve had, during my extended experience of more than 40 TC and YE as trainer and facilitator, the luck to be present at a lot of very much meaningful exemples.
I would like to share with you the story of a young girl, second generation pakistani immigrant, that lived in Sweden. It was about 4 years ago, I was trainer in a sport related Training Course to fight gender inequality and to boost self esteem.
She was part of a group of 3 participants, all Muslim families background, all wearing hijab but very different in the way of expressing their religion and lifestyle (two girls very joyous, smiley, with colorful dresses and hijabs and open to the others and the one I’m referring to that was, onn the contrary, always black dressed, keeping distance and not really being able to be part of the group at the beginning).
During the days, thanks to different sessions of team building, ice breakers and with the firsts days of sport related workshops there was the change.
She started to smile, to be present in the conversations and with the rest of the group, she was more involved in all the activities and she started to trust me as the person that was leading the group to a direction. On the third day she spoke with me during a coffee break confessing this was her first time out of the Country and that her family was really conservative and she couldn’t feel free to do what she always wanted, to play football and to travel.
On the third day she spoke with me during a coffee break confessing this was her first time out of the Country and that her family was really conservative and she couldn’t feel free to do what she always wanted, to play football and to travel. Thanks to this project she had finally the chance to do both and at the beginning she was not really believing she could do all these things freely. After that talk she tottally open up, we played football during the breaks, she was one of the leaders of the group in the final days and everyone loved her.
The last day, when it was time to say goodbye, she was incredibly grateful for the opportunity she had and thanked everyone, while crying over joy, for giving her the time of her life. It was a very moving moment that will forever stay with me.
I don’t know if she managed to follow her dreams after that week, but I do know she had the confidence, the means and the opportunity to do so if she wanted to.