Taylor, after defeat, posing for a photo with Kyrgyzstan's "King of the Ring" International Champion.
This week, PPI Fellow Taylor Brown, who is serving in South Africa, recounts his experience in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, co-facilitating a training of trainers for IREX, a Washington, DC based non-profit, with programs in Kyrgyzstan.
On Friday, December 9th, I was excited to begin the lengthy journey to Bishkek from Durban, South Africa, to train 30 Kyrgyz coaches/physical education teachers on the many aspects of using sport as a tool for social and youth development. I had the privilege of co-facilitating the training with David Cady, a native of St. Louis, who has had 30+ years experience coaching at the high school level and running team-building workshops around the world. The initiative is part of a larger IREX program called “KICK” (Kyrgyzstan Innovations in Coaching Kids), whose objective is to use sport as a medium for teaching conflict management and to build mutual understanding among Kyrgyz coaches and youth from different regions and ethnic and religious backgrounds. The program is funded by a grant from SportsUnited, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Team "KICK", following a horseback ride through the snow-capped mountains of Kyrgyzstan.
The specific segments of the training that I delivered on behalf of PPI were “Coaching is More than Winning,” Sports and Life Skills, the Anatomy of Peace and describing PPI’s Twinning Programs across our four sites. My personal highlight was facilitating “The Anatomy of Peace” portion of the training, using PPI’s basketball drills to reinforce the Arbinger Institute’s valuable lessons and methodologies on conflict resolution. I was nervous leading up to the session, primarily because of the language barriers (Russian, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek are the primary languages spoken in Kyrgyzstan). Luckily, I received endless amounts of support from the global PPI family. PPI Technical Assistance Program Director Brian Cognato (who also was of great help in developing the training curriculum) and Cyprus’ PPI Fellow Gunnar Hagstrom offered encouragement and advice, as they had facilitated the Anatomy of Peace in non-English speaking environments before.
Following the training of trainers, the next steps of the KICK program include:
1. The 30 training participants will write proposals for $1,000 grants to use to develop sporting programs and events to use either in their own communities, or between communities.
2. 5 coaches from the program will be selected for an April 2012 exchange visit to David’s school, Webster Groves High School, in St. Louis.
3. The 5 coaches will collaborate to develop a Youth Sports Camp in Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2012.
Taylor (far right), with David (second from the left) and IREX staff members Dara and Eldiyar, meeting with Kyrgyzstan's Minister of Sport.
On a personal note, the trip to Kyrgyzstan is something I will never forget. In addition to the training, we had the opportunity to meet with government officials, participate in/observe sports programming and meet many wonderful people that were very eager to share their culture and past experiences. At the end of the training, David and I received numerous traditional gifts from the training’s participants, as they expressed their gratitude to us for taking the time to build capacity and inspire social development in their communities – many doing so in poem form! Thank you to everyone that made the week-long visit such an unforgettable experience.
