IDSDP: Uganda Tchoukball Association

Author: Ismail Waiswa Post Dated: 6th April 2021

Uganda Tchoukball Association uses Tchoukball as a sport to promote Development and Peace as one of its programs in Uganda.

We focus on girls, boys and youths in the city suburbs and rural hard-to-reach communities. We use Tchoukball as tool to teach values to our girls and female youths that include (but are not limited to);

– Leading by example
– Standing autonomously
– Taking charge and responsibility of their life decisions
– Promoting unity with others
– Being emotionally rationale
– Standing up for others who don’t have a voice
– Being courageous and fearless

“[We] designed a weekly Sports Program where we invite and play Tchoukball with girls…”

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many teenage girls got pregnant, were chased from home and others ended up into teenage marriages. Uganda Tchoukball Association designed a weekly Sports program where we invite and play Tchoukball with girls. We encourage each player to learn the basics of our sports training values and pass them over to the other girls in their communities. At each end of each month, we then get invites from different players and agree on which community we will visit, and we organise a fun filled community Sports Day – where we have counselling and mentorship sessions to both the girls and boys on issues of Sexual Reproductive Health, Career Guidance and Talent Development.

Since the beginning of this approach in Nov. 2020, we have mentored 18 young female players to be at the forefront of reaching out to other girls with extending our services and values, we have also worked and trained 22 male youth coaches to work and extend our outreach to their suburbs and home communities. We have restored hope to the young girls and boys who had no teachers or people to talk to during the hard times of this pandemic.

“… providing fruit tree seedlings to schools and communities – as a way to provide a nutritious fruit snack meal to the needy school children…”

In partnership with Students Without Borders Africa, we are working on using our youthful community in establishing sustainable and long lasting community development projects of providing fruit tree seedlings to schools and communities – as a way to provide a nutritious fruit snack meal to the needy school children, as well as to contribute towards the global efforts in combating climate change.

“… assistance with fees for the pitch or perhaps enabling us to get water and glucose for both our coaches and trainees, [could] surely increase participation of the youths and young people in our program.”

In all our work, we aim at using sports as a tool for sharing life skills and values, to especially the female youths and young people and create a better future for them. As a youth voluntary and youth led organization, we are limited with resources to hire training grounds as we don’t own one. This is why we can only do no more than 2 training sessions a week. Some of our female and male young coaches and trainees have to walk over 12kms to and from the pitch with no glucose and water during and after our trainings. This has partly discouraged many other young people to join our programs.

If only we can get a party to stand with us in providing assistance with fees for the pitch or perhaps enabling us get water and glucose for both our coaches and trainees, we can surely increase participation of the youths and young people in our program.

“We believe that with our programs, the young people will be strengthened and guided into becoming the independent critical thinkers who can make solid choices for their future. “

As a way to meet our organization outcomes, we adopted the following as our organization values and practices;

– Leadership: We lead by example
– Benchmarking: from other successful organizations’ practices
– Realistic: We set up and work with realistic and achievable goals
– Communication: We encourage and participate frequently through our weekly meetings and discussions
– Information Technology: We adopted social media platforms like WhatsApp as a way to effectively communicate throughout the week (at less costs incurred)
– Time bound: Giving ourselves deadlines for each task assigned
– Respect: We value and respect one another, as well as one another’s ideas
– Diversity & Inclusion: We value diversity and inclusion in our day to day works

We believe that with our programs, the young people will be strengthened and guided into becoming the independent critical thinkers who can make solid choices for their future. We are currently looking at the different impact measuring tools which we can use to measure how our beneficiaries have been positively impacted besides the individual testimonies from them and their communities.

Passion for “Development and a Peaceful society” greatly attributes to my decision for joining this sector. Tchoukball, a sport we use in our games was founded on the values of peace promotion, I quote: “The objective of human physical activities is not to make champions, but rather to help construct a harmonious society.” — Dr. Hermann Brandt.

I believe each of us can collectively play their part in creating a more peaceful world, a peaceful society is more appealing to development and transformation.

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