We look for sponsors!

Here, you can see a presentation of the project: past, present and future: http://prezi.com/mlltnlntzd9p/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

If your basketball team or sports shop or brand is interested on sponsoring a team, just contact me: irego@tatuproject.org
If you want to donate smaller amount or just material, it is also welcome! Check the presentation!

Aquí tenemos la presentación del proyecto: pasado, presente y futuro: http://prezi.com/azolu9yk6mof/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Si tu equipo de baloncesto, tienda o marca quiere tener su equipo en la liga local que comienza en Msitu Wa Tembo, escribe a: irego@tatuproject.tatuproject.org
Si prefieres donar otra cantidad, o simplemente material que nos pueda ser útil, ¡bienvenido! ¡Mira la presentación y verás cómo puedes ayudar!

Basketball project VIII: Setting up second phase of the project. Badaaye (see you later)

Last week on the field for Javi and me had come. Then, it was time to set up the conditions for next weeks and months, for basketball trainings in Msitu Wa Tembo. Actually, we couldn’t train on Monday and Wednesday that week, as children had vacations. We took advantage of free time on Monday to organize the meeting in TATU office (in Moshi).

Seven of the trainers who had been training the kids (Pascal, Ema, Dennis, Jonhatan, Edgar, Hilary and Ismaeli) attended the meeting. Three sports teachers from Kikwete and Msitu schools also came (Max, Kisaka and Massawe). The team was completed by Albane, Javi and me, representing TATU Project.

After discussing during two hours, we got a nice list of agreements, setting up tasks to be done by trainers, teacher and us, during the next months, until December, when a tournament will be organized to close the scholar year and basketball season (they finish school in December and start in January in Tanzania). Trainers committed to keep volunteering during this second phase. As examples of arranged tasks, teachers take over water, first aid and are supposed to learn the basics of basketball to take part in the trainings; trainers are supposed to plan daily and evaluate monthly, as well as register attendance; and TATU members (we) will look for sponsors to keep improving the conditions for future phase three.

La última semana de nuestra estancia en Tanzania había llegado. En ella, teníamos que asegurarnos de que el proyecto de baloncesto iniciado sigue funcionando tras nuestra marcha, que sigue habiendo entrenamientos en Msitu Wa Tembo. Paradójicamente, no pudimos entrenar durante esa semana porque era de vacaciones para los niños; así que aprovechamos el tiempo que quedaba libre el lunes para organizar la reunión en la casa-oficina de TATU.

En la reunión contamos con siete de los entrenadores que habían empezado ya con los niños (Pascal, Ema, Dennis, Jonhatan, Edgar, Hilary and Ismaeli), tres profesores de educación física de los colegios implicados (Max, Kisaka y Massawe), y también estábamos Albane, Javi y yo, en representación de TATU.

Después de dos horas de reunión, teníamos una bonita lista de acuerdos, estableciendo las tareas de entrenadores, profes y gente de TATU durante los próximos meses, hasta el torneo que se organizará en diciembre para cerrar el año escolar y temporada de baloncesto en los coles (en Tanzania, el curso escolar dura de enero a diciembre). Los entrenadores se comprometieron a seguir trabajando de forma voluntaria hasta el final de esta segunda fase. Como ejemplos de tareas acordadas, los profesores se encargan del agua y primeros auxilios y de aprender lo básico sobre baloncesto para poder participar en las sesiones; los entrenadores deben planificar cada entrenamiento, entregar una evaluación mensual y comprobar la asistencia; y desde TATU nos encargaremos de buscar patrocinadores para mejorar las condiciones de cara a la tercera fase.

So it was time to prepare some notebooks for head coaches (following model from CB Zona Press in schools in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid), and some small guidelines for other trainers and teachers (contacts, tasks, rules, first aid protocol…). On Friday, they were done for last training. Albane, Javi and me took over last details, while Dennis, Hilary and the others were conducting the training. As it was a special training during vacations, less than half of the children were there.

Así que tocaba ponerse manos a la obra para tener listos los cuadernos de entrenador (basados en el modelo del CB Zona Press para los coles de Sanse) y pequeñas guías para entrenadores ayudantes y profesores (contactos, tareas, reglas, primeros auxilios…). El viernes, ultimamos algunos detalles durante el entrenamiento, dirigido por Dennis, Hilary y los demás entrenadores. Como era un entrenamiento excepcional en época de vacaciones, ni la mitad de los niños pudieron venir.

The training was great. Seeing it from outside, how Dennis explained shooting technique, step by step, nobody better than Fish for explaining shooting! I think all of us felt proud of our work. When saying goodbye to teachers (oh, Mwalimu Max! we will miss you so bad!) and children, I just thought how well they will play basketball next time.

Ver el entrenamiento desde fuera fue genial. Dennis explicó la técnica de tiro, paso a paso, como si de un vídeo de Jota Cuspinera se tratara. ¿Quién mejor que Fish para explicar el tiro? ¿Sabéis de dónde sacó ese mote? Del sonido que hacía el balón al entrar por el aro en una buena serie de triples. Es un mote de jugón, ¿eh? Las despedidas siempre tienen su punto de tristeza, pero cuando puedes pensar en lo bien que jugarán al baloncesto la próxima vez… Es imposible no sonreír.

But that was not all for our last day. We finished going to Baptist court for the last game, enjoying playing with our friends one more time. We said thank you, they also said so, and we finally said Badaaye, marafiki! (see you later, friends!).

Para terminar nuestro último día, fuimos a Baptist a disfrutar el último partido con nuestros amigos. Agradecimos el trabajo realizado, y ellos también; y nos despedimos con un ‘Badaaye, marafiki!’ (¡Nos vemos, amigos!)

Health project II: Teaching mamas

I didn’t expect teaching mamas was going to be that great! They are participative, dynamic and funny, so funny. And I didn’t have that much trouble to catch their attention. They had told me that it could happened that they fall asleep at class…

I guess having advice from Jimena, Itxaso and Javi has been paramount in this successful experience. They suggested me to do a lot of things for catching their attention: well, we did quizzes, jokes and a lot of theatres. Even when a dead bat fell down from the ceiling, I pretended to be doing CPR: oh! We laughed a lot during these two seminars.

By the way, we talked about first aid, about unconscious casualty in the first day, and more common cases in the second day: foreign body obstructing airway, wound disinfections, alarm signs in head trauma, nose hemorrhage… In all cases, we (Mwalimu Sara and me) focused in three main things: check for Danger, ask for Help, and use GLOVES. I prepared the seminar based on the European Resuscitation Council Guidelines, adapting the info using a book specialized on these kind of coursed in East Africa.

The good thing of this group of women (empowered by TATU) is that all the knowledge I spread between seven women on Tuesday and Friday, is spread on Saturday to all the rest, around one hundred women.

I think the seminars have been useful for them (I hope they will improve for example the way they disinfect wounds in their children), and I really enjoyed the time spent with these seven women.

Basketball Project VII: forth and fifth trainings for trainers

After discussing about main individual skills, time came for tactics. We did two sessions. We were not able to talk about many things, but discussion about the few of them was really interesting.

The first one was about man to man defense. Using the coach board, we set up several rules for defending, as orientating towards the side, defending aggressively in one-pass distance, being ready for rotations when you are in two-pass distance… We talked about them, they were very participative giving other ideas, and then we applied everything in 3 on 3, and then in 5 on 5.

The second consisted on transitions. We first discussed about the number of players who should try to get offensive rebound and the number of them who should go straightly to defense (defensive transition). Then, we did an exercise for practicing one of the models. Javi took over offensive transition. He explained a model, and we did an exercise for practicing. We finished with 5 on 5 applying both parts.

Health project I: Just considering ideas

TATU Project is a little organization, like a baby. It’s growing fast and I believe it’s growing in the good direction, or even better, it is not growing only in one direction, but it is observing all the ways, before advancing so much. Well, the fact is that I love the way they (we?) think and act. What I wanted to say is, inside a small organization, the health project has just been born: so, we are trying to get a lot of information (by the social study we talked about but not only) and making the correct contacts.

As Albane, one of the founders, has come back and we are having less work in the last two weeks, we managed to have a couple of interesting meetings.

First, it was with Wazo, a local organization which is focused on HIV prevention (look at this, TATU touches many fields of action but only in one place, as Wazo focuses just in one specific field, just one disease, but spread its action geographically). We got to know them through basketball, and our goals are complementary, so we will work together for sure, having to determine the accurate way. A possibility is empowering some members from group of mamas to be able to teach about stopping transmission of HIV.

Some days after, we met with 3 medicine students (Lugano, Adams and Hans), who are studying “MD” 5^th at KCMC. I met Lugano by chance when visiting the hospital. As they are interested on community health and they know already a lot because that’s an important subject in their curriculum, they are probably the best for being asked for advice in health issues. They like the project, and future collaborations will happen.

Besides all these, Jimena, Javi and I have been working with the group of mamas, giving seminars about basic health topics. Mine is being first aid. I will talk later about it.

Basketball project VI: Second week of trainings

The good progresses with dribbling and passing by the children allowed the trainers to start with some skills about shooting. Let’s say individual skills are being learnt without problems, children are really enthusiastic about them and really pay attention. But when it comes to team work… It gets complicated!

Our advice is being to play different games which need children to collaborate and think together about the solution to a problem. It opposes the traditional, and quite established in Tanzania, method of direct commands. Actually, you may pass by a Tanzanian class and hear repetition of the numbers until infinite. The idea is giving another vision through sport. Trainers like the idea and we can see some very original games played in Msitu Wa Tembo playground.

Also, during this second week, Javi and me, initiators of the project, have taken some distance. So, trainers have more space for designing and performing their sessions. We are happy with progresses, and, which is so more important, trainers also.

At the same time, sports teachers of the school are getting closer, showing interest for participating on the sessions, what would be taken into account at setting up of next months (coming soon).

Basketball project V: Second and third trainings for trainers

During the second week of the program, we met on Tuesday and Thursday with our friends in Baptist. They kept showing interest and we went through more individual skills: dribbling and passing on Tuesday, and defending skills and pivots on Thursday. We agreed on teaching first dribbling and passing to children in Msitu, giving them the basic skills of movement before starting teaching shooting, lay-ups…

We kept going with the same scheme, with the way of teaching the skill form zero at the start, performing some games that can be done with children. Then, we talked about what we can do for improving further, doing some exercises for improving the speed and control.

In the pictures, some of the (already) trainers are performing a game for passing, and ‘mirror game’ and ‘king of dribling’ (for teaching protection dribbling).

Our friends, players/trainers from Baptist court, started to be more participative, and they reminded us about ball handling without dribbling, and passing with two balls, practicing two kind of pass at same time.

This last picture is from Javi’s display about pivots and first step.