Summer School 2012

 

This year’s Summer School will again target young Cambodian women with promising football talent and/or difficult backgrounds. The Summer School (SS) is a 6-week long “summer camp” offering language and computer classes as well as high quality football training and extra curricular activities. The goal is to boost the girls education and self-confidence, while providing them an alternative to the long, unscheduled summer break. Many can learn more in these 6 weeks than classmates throughout the school year. This allows them to catch up on this they might have missed, due to financial difficulties. Public schools, even if said to be free, usually demand a certain amount of money for extra classes and better grades.

 

»     »      »      The schedule is almost finished!       «       «       «

 

This year there will be two SS classes participating in SALT’s program with 20 or more players per class. The schedule is then however split up so that e.g. only around 10 students join one class, setting the student:teacher ratio to around 10:1. Daily morning football, as well as other sport and dancing lessons will be held 7:30-9:30am. Tactics and 11-a-side games are planned for morning hours and Friday afternoons.

 

The midday heat will be avoided by placing English and Computer classes before and after lunch. Then in the afternoon, players from the Select Mighty Girls Program will join the football sessions as players and assistants for the  coaches.

 

Thanks to the coordinational and financial help of volunteers, supporters, and donors we can once again offer alternating classes in the afternoons to expose the girls to a wide variety of vocations and cultural activities. Art classes at Sammaki, arts and crafts with volunteers, language classes in Chinese/French/Thai, and Ultimate Frisbee matches are just a few examples! Swimming classes will also be available, as most girls do not know now to swim and drowning is a serious danger during the rainy season.

 

MORE ON EDUCATIONAL CLASSES:

 

• Story writing
• Traditional dance
• Financial literacy and gender empowerment: The GOAL Program
• Healthy relationships: Our Strength, women’s organization
• basic first aid
• Seminar on memory: how to improve my memory?

 

 

 

Selection of Participants!

Questionaries are helping us take possible backround issues of girls into account while selecting participants. Each MG coach of the girls teams in the Battambang league helped interview their players about family, school, future dreams and other vital information. Now we are in the final selection round and sending information to parents and schools! All of last year’s participants are also invited to join for a second year; for an even larger positive impact.

 

In 2012 SALT is furthermore trying to integrate some of the deaf players from our partner Krousar Thmey. After having several deaf players join KMR’s team and playing in a mixed group throughout the last session we are hoping two girls will join many of the activities for Summer School as well.

 

 

 

Invitations are out!

The last invitations are being printed, signed and delivered to approx.49 girls! Only 7 more days to go before Summer School 2012 will start! COUNTING DOWN!!!! All of the SALT Staff and volunteers are taking care of last preparations and looking forward to meeting all the girls at the airport field next Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           »      »   »   First Day of SS 2012!      «     «    «

 

 

02.July.2012:                        This morning at 7.30am the Summer School girls met at the airport field in Battambang. They arrived by tuktuks or were picked up by a SALT truck beforehand at different organisations. This years participants are joining from CAD, CFI, Komar Riekrey, FEDA, Kroursa Themey, Rapha, KCD and Chrey. After a short introduction of all the Summer School staff the girls started kicking it! A football session took place under the guidance of Chet and Phirun, the two coaches selected as head coaches for SS 2012. Afterwards name-games were conducted by other volunteers, ensuring not only the participants from last year hang out in groups, but find new friends along the SS-1 class. Around 11am the Cambodian sun started showing it’s power and the girl headed back to the Mighty Girls House for a quick lunchbreak. Later in the day the girls will have to complete an English test, which will help us to evaluate the levels of the girls and place them in skill-matching classes for the next months.

 

 

 

 

 Summer School is on!

Summer School 2012 has been on for 2 weeks now and we are just getting started on our third. We are starting the week off with the GOAL Programm. On Monday all SS-girls joined a workshop about non-verbal communication and will today learn more about peer pressure. Football training continues to fill the mornings, while languages  (this year especially the prefered language Chinese) are studied in the afternoons. See below for a picture of our diligent English students.

 

Three classes have been created this year, offering three different levels of English. A forth class was later added for girls struggeling with reading. This class offers them to opportunity to catch up with the friends. Up until now all girls have been working hard. There are more girls missing for several days than last year, but this stands in proportion to their larger difficulties with e.g. their families or poverty. Since right now is the harvest season in Cambodia many families theoretically want their children to be working on the rice fields or helping the elderly at home. Our Staff is monitoring the attendance and following up with each girl that is missing class without telling us beforehand. Nevertheless have a remarkable number of participants commented on how much they enjoy summer school, the delicious and nutritious food at the Mighty Girls house and how the tuktuk drivers take great care of the players.

 

After WHO had sent out a warning about the Ev 71 virus SS also increased health classes. The virus is normally only harmful to children under 12years of age, but in rare cases can be caught be adults as well. The SS kids therefore were instructed about washing hands properly before classes and lunch, not sharing spoons or taking food from other plates (as the virus is transmitted by saliva), and teachers were equipped with hand sanitizer. Our health workshop leader dedicated a day to prevention class. None of our girls have suffered from the virus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

»        »         »       Our Field Trip to Pailin!      «         «         «

 

This weekend the Summer School went on a field trip to Pailin. This is indeed the name of the province we visited, as well as the city we stayed at and the name of the football team we played… but more about that later. The idea was to have a trip for all the girls, from which some had never left their province before, so that they could mingle along peers and deepen their friendships, as well as learning about their country.

 

So on Friday morning, it was the 27^th of July, the entire Summer School, including 5 chaperones, jumped onto the bus and was ready for the ride. After about 1.5 hrs and one of our girls feeling a bit motion sick we arrived at Wat Phnom Yat at ~8.30am. Accourding to the legend this Wat is one of the very rare Wats dedicated to a woman. It is also dedicated to an endless love, as some of the girls were told by bystanding monks, who they asked questions from the girls questionnaire. That’s right! Field trips of course always have a educational aspect to them. Therefore SALT handed out a rally about the temples for all to complete. The girls also enjoyed the view of the mountainous countryside.

 

 

Once we had checked into the guesthouse in Pailin and the girls had relax a few minutes it was time for our next point of interest: a jackfruit farm. Apart from the things they learned about growing and picking fruits the biggest attraction was the river flowing right by the farm. The water had just the perfect depth, as some girls couldn’t swim, for a little waterfight.

Saturday afternoon a pair of football matches were arranged for the SS kids. The first played was a rough match between SS-2 and a U15 boys team, they second between our SS-1 class and the women’s province team of Pailin. Surprisingly the SS-1 girls, even though physically more feeble, gained an early lead!  Thanks to their football skills, endurance and teamwork SS-1 then held onto this lead and won the match 1:0!!! The golden boot for this game was one of our Mighty Girls, helping out as sweeper. I know you might be wondering: A sweeper shooting a goal?! Yes! She swept right out from the back, across the field and fired the ball into the opponents goal. Both games were played out fair and nobody was injured or received neither a yellow nor red card. Everybody seemed pleased by the standings. And luckily the field was quite close to our guesthouse, saving all of us from a long, stinky busride. Hungry as bears the girls returned to the restaurant just across the street, where our guesthouse provided us a delicious dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

Then rest of the evening was spent with planing our football festival for the next morning. With help from the main coaches all Mighty Girls, as well as the SS-2 students, prepared their exercise for the next morning. This evening everyone was tired, but happy. The festival was planned out to be split into a “learning” and a “doing” section. While the learning section was split up again into 6 different portions. These were dribbling, shooting, passing, ball control and “faints”, heading and life skills. Each player needed to visit each station once.

 

 

Once everyone had passed through all stations the games could begin. The girls did a great job and the kids of Pailin had a wonderful opportunity to practice their football skills or take their first steps in properley kicking a ball. The festival ended with small sideded games on 8 fields. After the festival we returned to Battambang. Safe and Sound.

 

 

 

»    »   »   For more pictures & news about our Summer School visit our current volunteer Rona vanZander’s webpage !