FUNDLIFE INTERNATIONAL
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Meet our Global Superstars
  • Football for Life
  • NEWS
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Meet our Global Superstars
  • Football for Life
  • NEWS

NEWS


AN INTERVIEW WITH NORA DOOLEY OF COACHES ACROSS CONTINENTS

12/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture

FundLife - At the beginning of May, Football 4 Life welcomed Nora, a head coach trainer from Coaches Across Continents (CAC) to lead a 4-days Coaches Training Seminar in Leyte Normal University, Tacloban. This seminar was quite a success with happy and engaged participants, having fun playing and learning altogether. We had an opportunity to better understand the goal and content of this seminar thanks to Nora that has accepted to answer our questions.
How could you describe Coaches Across Continents (CAC) in few words?

Coaches Across Continents is an organization promoting sport for social impact movement. CAC mission is to enable communities to create lasting social change through sport. We partner with local organizations (such as Football 4 Life in Tacloban, Philippines) to implement our ‘Chance to Choice’ curriculum that focuses on local social issues such as: female empowerment, including gender equity; conflict resolution, including social inclusion; health and wellness, including HIV behaviour change; and other life skills. CAC started in Tanzania in 2008. In 2014, we worked in 26 countries with 74 implementing community partner programs.


How many years have you been working for CAC?

I have been working with CAC since 2013 and I have cumulated two years on the field. We have head coaches who run the training all over the world and I am one of them, and we have volunteers that come to be a trainer for few weeks or months. Everyone starts as a trainee, learning to be a trainer for some time before leading seminars. 
Picture
Why did you decide to be part of CAC?

After I graduated from college where I played football competitively and intensively, I decided to volunteer for a year in South Africa for a group using sport as a development tool focusing on HIV awareness. I saw the potential of using sport for development. I learned about CAC and I decided to travel with them for 3 months instead of going back home. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to work for them on a longer-term basis.

 
What do you like about the vision of CAC?

What CAC is doing in the sport for development field is quite unique. We do not have our own program anywhere. We are only facilitators. We get to see what people are doing all over the world since we work with so many different organizations. Every organization has different approaches using different sports with different development goals, obviously within different culture context and social issues. 

But what I really enjoy with CAC is our philosophy of self-directed learning. It is all about the local organization identifying their own problems, finding their own solutions. CAC does not go anywhere saying that our method is the best. We want to erase ourselves as much as we can and allow the most organic learning possible to happen. The participants identify their own problems and solutions; they make their own choices. We ask questions instead of lecturing. We do not pretend we know it all. We set the group for learning, we do not tell them what they are going to learn or what they will get from it. We want to facilitate the learning process. 
Picture
What is so particular about the CAC curriculum?

We have the curriculum written down, but we do not give a manual to the participants. We are going to a place, we talk with the participants and the coordinators and we get an idea of what social issues we should focus on. And when participants play, something is happening. At the end of the week, we leave a developed curriculum with more than 24 games, but the participants have adapted the games. We teach by experiencing and not through a book in a classroom. We want to enforce local ownership and sustainability. The local organization knows their community, and we do not. 
 

Do you observe a difference between these Tacloban participants and other groups you have been teaching all over the world?

It is my first time coaching in the Philippines. But I have been leading similar seminars all over the world. 

Every program is so unique. What is a great advantage with this group is that they all understand English so well. But it is not the only reason that makes this group so nice to train. Something has clicked here since the first day of the seminar. Maybe it is thanks to some of the coaches from F4L, because they are seriously phenomenal. They are some of the best educators that I ever encountered!
Picture
What are the dynamics that you have observed here in the group you’ve been teaching?

It is true that Filipinos are shy people. But this is the power of sport: we create this environment with a game that they love or that they want to learn. Just by being goofy as coaches’ trainers ourselves, we have cracked their shyness. Moreover, having fantastic older leaders helps too. Finally, the dynamics here can be described as: they are definitely having fun, and they really care about their community and are eager to learn. Even the young boy teams that just thought they came to learn some football tricks, they understand that they are learning much more than football. You see the light in their eyes. They really want to learn and to answer our questions. There are some things that cannot be measured through figures, and it is part of it. Participants took chances on the last day of the seminar: they tried to be coaches by adapting the games we previously learned. They were definitely nervous, with not so much confidence. But they were awesome, especially for those who were coaching for the first time. 

 
Why do you consider this seminar as a successful one?

What shows as a success is the last day of the seminar. The game adaptations were not all successful, but they all tried intensively. And once you have started, you can try again and again. Confidence will grow. In terms of the leaders of F4L, they are at the top of whom we work with. The women in this group were so amazing, more empowered than I have encountered in most places! 
Picture
If the participants have to remember 4 things from the seminar what should it be?

1.       Love to coach. It goes with having fun. Take it as a passion, not a job.

2.       Ask questions for yourself. Always question your own thinking, your own way of life.

3.       Remember the power of sport. You can teach anything on the field, even mathematics!

4.       Get out of your box! Confidence will grow.

 
Thanks Nora for this quite interesting feedback. 

And a big applause to the participants that were willing to be part of this seminar. Inspiration is contagious and we can’t wait to see these games reaching thousands of children and young people!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    October 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    6th Anniversary Haiyan Commemoration
    Andrew Figari
    Arsenal Cup
    Arsenal Football Clinic
    Arsenal In The Community
    Australian Aid
    CAC
    Capitol Cup Cbu
    Capitol Cup Cebu
    Classroom Sessions
    Coach Ed Programme
    Congressional Meet
    COVID 19 Emergency Response
    COVID-19 Emergency Response
    Dengue Awareness Football Sessions
    Dignity Day 2019
    Expansion FFLA
    Explore More Possibilities Program
    Explore More Program
    FFLA
    FFLA At Thirsty Cup
    FFLA Cebu
    FFLA Coach
    FFLA FIFA World Cup
    FFLA Graduation
    FFLA Internship
    FFLA Learners
    FFLA Players
    FFLA Summer League
    FFLA Thirsty Cup Stories
    FFLA Tournament
    FFLA Year 2
    Financial Literacy
    Football3
    Football Champions
    Football Clinic
    Football Education
    Football For Girls
    Football For Hope
    Football For Kids
    Football For Life
    Football For Life Academy
    Football Jacket
    Foot Ball Outerwear
    Football Skills
    Football Tournament
    Football Tournament Philippines
    FundLife
    FundLife At SIGEF
    FundLife At Tokyo
    FundLife At Tokyo Japan
    FundLife Cebu
    FundLife Celebrates Dignity Day
    FundLife COVID-19 Relief
    FundLIfe Expands FFLA
    FundLife Founder Marko Kasic
    FundLife GCL
    FundLife International
    FundLife Internship
    FundLife Leadership Academy
    Fundlife Partner School
    FundLife Play For Peace
    Fundlife Savers Club
    FundLife Summer Kickoff
    FundLife Summer League
    FundLife Training Workshop
    FundLife Work Opportunities
    FundLife Workshop
    Fustsal Girls Congressional Meet
    Futsal Philippines
    Gawad Kalinga Football Fundlife
    GCL - Cebu
    Generation Amazing
    Generation Amazing Centre
    Generation Amazing National Festival
    Genesis Project
    Girl Rising
    Girl Rising Workshop
    Girls Advancement Program
    Girls Community League
    Girls Community League Cebu
    Girls Community League Tacloban
    Girls Empowerment
    Girls Futsal Philippines
    Girls Got This
    Girls Rising
    Girls Rising Explore More
    Girls Rising Participants
    Global Dignity Day
    Global Giving
    Haiyan Commemoration
    Haiyan Cup
    Haiyan Football Cup
    Japan
    Kick-off Launching Of FundLife
    Leadership
    Learner's Profile
    Marko Kasic
    Mini-world-cup
    Partner
    Play For Peace Mindanao
    Recognition Day
    Sama Sama Games
    Savings
    Shinji Kagawa In Tacloban
    Shinji Kagawa Visits FundLife
    Shinji Kagawa Visits Tacloban
    SIGEF 2019
    SIGEF 2019 FundLife
    Sports League
    Sports Tournament
    SSH Young Leaders Mentorship Program
    Summer League
    Tacloban
    Thirsty Cup
    Thirsty Cup Cebu
    Training Workshop
    Training Workshop Fundlife
    UEFA Foundation
    UN Global Goals
    UNICEF
    World Dignity Day
    Young Football Players
    Young Leaders

    RSS Feed

VIDEOS     PUBLICATIONS     JOBS     PARTNERS     CONTACT US
PRIVACY POLICY
FundLife International is a registered non-for-profit organisation in the Philippines with company number 201502511
© 2017, FUNDLIFE INTERNATIONAL.
​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED​