TEAM TALK SAMBURU 2015

By Ali Alport, Community and Conservation Manager for The Safari Collection

Team Talk is a fun and educational project that uses Tag Rugby and educational workshops to directly improve the lives of young girls and boys, enabling them to play a fuller role in the family and the wider community.

The principles of Tag Rugby provide us with the ideal framework from which to explore communication and goal setting. For the children participating, the ability to work as a team within the game can be related to their future and education and the importance of supporting each other in school life.

The Tournament provides a vibrant and exciting end to the week with a chance to achieve their goal of scoring tries, reaching the semi-finals or perhaps even winning the tournament!

This was TEAM TALK’s fourth trip to Samburu since the program started in 2011, hosted this year by Lpus Leluai Primary School. Paul Lenanpangai, recently promoted from his position of the class teacher to principal teacher, was particularly enthusiastic about welcoming us back and very supportive in preparing for the project.

Having been part of previous Team Talk visits he believes that the project is beneficial for developing leadership qualities in the students that participate, and particularly in empowering the girls. This year he asked us to work with the 80+ students of class 7 and 8 (ages 12-15).

Many of the children in Westgate come from families where Maa is the only language spoken at home and the schools are not strict about encouraging the children to speak out of the vernacular in school.

We have found that one of the biggest hurdles that students graduating from primary school and entering into secondary school face, is their ability to speak English. One of the additional goals of this week is to help the students with their English understanding and encourage them to speak English confidently.

Ronnie, the lead coach for TAG Rugby Trust, selected 12 of the most competent students to work with throughout the week on the TRT coach Level 1 course. These students became the Team leaders of their groups. During the morning Tag sessions they worked with Ronnie to learn the skills to coach Tag Rugby, and in the afternoon sessions, they worked with their own teams to help them understand the Tag Rugby principles.

By the final day most of the students had mastered the Tag Rugby – the offside rule and backward passing provided a bit more of a challenge, but I think having the group of young leaders who worked with Ronnie, did help their team members to pick up the game more quickly.

The workshops were lively with a mixture of group discussion and activity. The Gender balance workshop was particularly interesting within the context of the Samburu culture, where arranged marriages of young girls are still very much the norm. In this group of 84 children only 22 are girls. Of those 22 girls there are a least five who are very bright and not afraid to stand up and speak out within the groups.

We completed the education by talking about dreams, aspirations and goals for the future, and how all the topics discussed through the week can help towards making those dreams come true: believing in yourself; knowing your own strengths and weaknesses; making the right decisions; and working as a team.

Anne, a Nanyuki-based teacher said: “I feel over the week the boys and girls have formed a good relationship with us and have confidently approached us with questions about personal issues. I think the introduction this year of a ‘question box’ was a great idea, although most of the children opted to individually address their questions and concerns directly to us. Having Savanna and Caroline with us was very helpful with this, as the girls, especially found it easier to relate to them”.

Josephine, who is running the Team Talk Mentoring program in Nanyuki, finished by reminding the students “Tough times don’t last but tough people do” – and she encouraged them to have the strength to overcome some of the obstacles they will inevitably face as they grow up and work towards achieving their goals.

We were thrilled to be joined by Mikey Carr-Hartley and The Lyons family for the tournament on the final day – they watched a couple of games before taking part in a friendly match! The competitive spirit in all the students was evident, with Leopards and Warthogs fighting hard for first and second position.

The students all played hard but showed great sportsmanship on the field, a quality that is entrenched in the Tag Rugby Trust ethos. No team leaves the pitch without graciously shaking the hands of their opponents and thanking them for the game.

The final Prize giving was well attended by students and parents. The newly formed Safe Samburu group opened the event with a fantastic performance of their HIV song. Francis gave a short address immediately afterwards to the audience about the importance of education. Paul, the principal, also emphasized to both students and parents that for the best results both parents and students need to support each other.