Their trip was sponsored by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in conjunction with the British Council and the Lamu Youth Rehabilitation Group. Here is their report:

The Lamu Youth Rehabilitation Group was set up by a group of concerned volunteers to address some key issues for the youth of Lamu, including Aids awareness and the dangers of the drug culture. One method they have adopted is to use Football as a means to occupy the young people and impart some messages about teamwork, respect for themselves and others, raise self esteem and so on.

Lamu is one of the poorest parts of Kenya with little or no facilities for football. What they do have is a love of the game and enthusiasm that is almost infectious. They all want to learn and are thirsty for knowledge.

As part of our trip the Youth Sport Trust and the FA shipped out 2 sets of the new TOP Sport Football goals, plus 30 footballs and bibs, and various giveaways for the players. These were used to assist with our sessions, but were subsequently left with the Lamu Youth Rehabilitation Group to assist the future development of their organisation through the power of football.

This report will only deal with the sessions themselves and not go into detail about the wonderful experience gained by the facilitators from working within such an environment. It is valuable to know some of the background to the sessions in order to gain a better understanding of this report

The goals of the week were as follows:

To share correct practice in coaching

To share correct practice in building up sessions

To share correct practice in organisation

To share correct practice in safety issues

To develop leadership, communication and teamwork skills with the coaches and young people

To share with the coaches the developmental and coaching techniques used and the rationale behind it.

To support the coaches in the planning and organization of a football festival

To have fun

The players and coaches were split into two distinct groups. (Approx 20 players aged 14-16 + 8 coaches in one group and a similar amount of 16-18 yrs olds and coaches in the other group)

Andy would take one group in the a.m and I would take the other. In the p.m we then switched groups

The sessions were approximately 2-2.5 hours in length.

For the practical sessions we had the use of two sand areas, which were approximately a 12-minute walk from the hotel. There was no toilet facility near the pitch, and the area itself was littered with stones, donkey droppings and other safety hazards.

It was also a public throughway and intermittently shepherds walking their goats, donkeys or cows across the pitch or children running around interrupted us. Yes a very interesting coaching environment I thought to myself. The players were all barefoot and in the main showed excellent technique.

After looking at the players in an exhibition game arranged for us on our arrival I had decided to focus the first session of defending as an individual progressing to defending in pairs.

The practice started with a warm up that was designed to show best practice. This was a whole new experience for the players who up to this point had just ran around the field to warm up. The advantage of having one ball for each player was extremely helpful as the warm up and practice progressed. The players were showed the correct way to stretch and some fun activities to warm up correctly

After taking some water on board, as it was at least 30 degrees I moved into the main theme of 'defending as an individual' it is not my intention to list the practices used here. The players were attentive and listened to the instructions via an interpreter. (Some of the younger group could not speak English therefore we had to get one of the bi-lingual players to translate into Swahili)

It is important to understand that they were very capable of working to a high level and that their understanding of the game was also excellent. The practices were certainly geared to the more advanced player, as they possessed the techniques and tactics to work at this level.

Because the groups were relatively large plus the time it takes to get your information translated into Swahili the content I had planned was greatly reduced. Each session would end with a cool down and a question and answer session from both players and the coaches.

This would be replicated in the p.m for the other group and would set the format for the week. During the week we would build on the previous day's practice and include more game related practices culminating in the festival on Friday afternoon.

The other group with Andy focused on a range of interactive workshops that focused on leadership development, communication skills and teamwork. Each session involved some discussion with the young people and coaches, a practical activity to explore the key issues and a plenary that linked these issues to the context of Football.

The practical sessions were deliberately designed to be unusual, fun, highly interactive and complimentary to the Football section of the programme. One example is that the young people were to build towers with drinking straws in small groups of 4/5 supported by a coach. This session focused on the need for good planning; teamwork, co-operation and support to colleagues and all of these were illustrated in a most practical way! (by seeing the height of the completed towers!)

The young people and coaches found some of the activities and style of approach quite unusual at first. My impression was that their education was very traditional and they were used to a very prescriptive approach from the "teacher in the front of the class". However, this issue was soon overcome and they all became enthusiastically involved in the sessions.

The group also spent one session on conditioning and fitness development for the game. This was designed to support Paul's work that continually emphasized the need for good warm-up/cool down and effective physical preparation to play.

The last day of our week in Lamu would culminate in a football festival. This was due to go on the Saturday but because of the visit by the President of Kenya all activities on that day were postponed. Consequently we brought the festival forward to the Friday afternoon. We spent the morning with the coaches organizing roles and responsibilities plus agreeing on the format for the festival.

This would be the first mini-soccer festival on the island. It meant a lot of work for the committee and coaches, everything from clearing the pitch of donkey droppings to making our own goalposts for the festival ! After 2 hours in the morning we felt confident that we had the resources and materials to run a festival.

We all gathered at 1.15 pm on the Friday to start our respective duties. The players would arrive at 2.00pm and the festival was due to start at 2.30pm. Sounds great in theory! We were still making the goals at 1.40 pm and the players had arrived early.

The festival did actually k.o at about 2.50 pm and the 6 teams faced each other on the 3 mini - pitches, marked out by colored pots from the local hardware shop.(as the cones had gone astray in transit) in a round robin tournament. Each coach had specific responsibilities for a team. Teams had chosen their own names and so Manchester United, Liverpool, Leeds United, Fulham, Arsenal and Valencia faced up to each other on a remote Island off the north east coast of Africa near the equator on sand pitches with bamboo goals watched by a crowd that consisted of interested locals plus some uninterested goats, cows and donkeys !

Coaches were also charged with implementing a warm up and rolling on and off substitutes to make sure that everybody in their squad played in every game. The top two teams contested the final. This was between Fulham and Manchester United with Fulham prevailing by one goal to zero in a game that not only showed a high level of technique, but was also played in a very sporting manner.

All players were recognised and rewarded for their efforts by way of a closing ceremony. The referees and coaches were also recognized. Overall by the time the festival closed at 6.30 pm there were a lot of smiling faces on the island of Lamu and the Lamu Youth Rehabilitation Group had the tools, knowledge and resources to organize and run a successful festival.

Overall the visit was a tremendous learning experience for both facilitators and we hope that some of the key messages were presented effectively to the coaches and players. The commitment, enthusiasm and support of the committee, coaches and players were outstanding and they were all a pleasure to work with. There a also a number of areas that could warrant further consideration with regard to the programme:

Provide support, expertise and guidance to help them create a simple development plan for the group. This could include plans for the development of the pitches through to support for first aid training for the coaches and so on.

Provide information and support to the group about potential opportunities for their highly talented players/young people to develop potential careers in Football, sports leadership or sports administration- for example information on any scholarships/ bursaries available, if there are any?

Develop links between the group/local schools and similar organizations in the UK- both the FA and Youth Sport Trust could help with this through the Specialist Sports College and/or FA networks

Provide follow up visits by other coaches

Provide support through internet/e-mail

Finally we would like to express our great thanks to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and British Council for given us the opportunity to undertake the visit, and particularly The committee, members and young people of the Lamu Youth Rehabilitation Group for making our experience such a memorable one.