Kings Camps is part of Kings Active Foundation, and our vision, is for ‘A World Where Children Love Being Active’. In the UK, we involve children in sport, predominantly through our Multi Sports and Activity camps, but also through events with schools and organisations. Following the recovery from the pandemic, our aim was to restart our outreach work.
At the end of 2021, we became a project-partner for an intervention focussed on getting orphans and vulnerable children; in Kisoro, Uganda; into education, health and community through the Hope Community Action Africa (HCAA) – Kisoro Orphan & Vulnerable Child Intervention Project. The work Emmanuel and HCAA are delivering is amazing and we’re thankful to be able to support the existing work they do.
Kings Active Foundation provide support in active-intervention which includes training and providing counsellors with active games that they can play with the children both at home and at monthly community days, which enables them to break down barriers with the children and enhance child protection, respect, relationships and family support.
As part of our commitment to the OVC project, we’ll be sending team members from our UK HQ to Kisoro to see the impact of our work and offer advice and guidance for ongoing development of the active games intervention.
Last month, Caz and Katie from our Sheffield, UK HQ went to Kisoro to see the active-games intervention in action and have today presented to our head office team an update of their time there.
The purpose of the visit was to facilitate the current work of the OVC project, guiding and training the counsellors and volunteers to engage the children and their care-givers using sports and activities and determine how we can support them.
What is our role?
The first stage was to see how the counsellors currently support and interact with the children. The counsellors and peer leaders we’re doing amazing work with the project already, their empathy and devotion to the children was clear to see. Within that first day, Caz and Katie could already see where they could add value by engaging children on arrival through active games and sports, providing a fun and more relaxed atmosphere. The difference in the children was almost immediate, which the counsellors witnessed and were able to adopt this approach quickly and easily, enabling the counsellors to see the value in the active games. This enabled the counsellors to use different techniques to ask children some of the more difficult questions, where a greater response was received than in the earlier visits. The active-games intervention is only part of the OVC project and the heart of the project will always be to ensure the child’s safety, health and wellbeing.
The counsellors and peer leaders were also able to develop their skills and confidence to deliver an enjoyable and effective Community day, putting active-games at the heart of the experience for over 80 children and their care- givers, with passers by watching and enjoying the fun and active sessions everyone was involved in.
It can seem sometimes that these visits are a luxury that we’re able to afford, but the impact of the visit forged greater relationships with HCAA and the counsellors and volunteers – enabling us to offer guidance, and help drive the project forward.
Keep up to date with the project
Our support continues on a monthly basis from the UK and we’ll be providing updates upon further visits taking place later on in the year. To find out more about the project, connect with us on LinkedIn – Caroline Coulthard, Hope Community Action Africa and Emmanuel Manishimwe.