NFSSP News Story

A trip which saw 26 Partnership Development Managers (PDMs) visit South Africa as part of the Dreams and Teams initiative to help boost the country’s sports provision, has been hailed a huge success.

The PDMs from Birmingham, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Leeds and the Isle of Wight spent a week in the African nation supporting the development of sport throughout the country’s nine regions.

Peter Brailey, PDM for Testwood, said: “The cultural experience was incredible, and we were pushed outside of our comfort zones. What I was impressed with most was the willingness of young people to want to learn and develop new skills.”

“We introduced a game of Tag Rugby to a mixed group of South African students, and within an hour we were having a high quality game. It was incredibly enjoyable from a coaching point of view. The experience was amazing and I will be ensuring that these experiences are transferred across my school and school sport partnership.”

The Youth Sport Trust’s Nick Pink, who manages the Africa Dreams and
Teams initiative which aims to develop 200 school links across the UK with schools from 19 different African countries, was delighted with the trip.

“Africa Dreams and Teams has been established in South Africa for about three years with 14 schools linked between England and the Durban area, in Kwazulu-Natal,” said Nick.
“The trip followed the success of this work and a developmental programme created after discussions between the Youth Sport Trust, the British Council as well as Sport and Recreation South Africa.”
“The impact was far-reaching too, we managed to touch rural areas in every province from the tips of Kruger National Park to the wine regions of the Western Cape,” he added.

The South African structure mirrors the composition in Britain with Cluster Partnerships - similar to School Sport Partnerships – created in each of the nine regions in South Africa. Each Cluster Partnership then contains a Cluster Coordinator (PDM) who sits at the middle in the hub school.

The Cluster Coordinator works to develop community sport and its impact on the South African national programme of ‘Mass Participation’.

The PDMs who travelled from Britain were invited to support and offer advice to 26 Cluster Coordinators who are in the early stages of building partnerships between schools, sports clubs, provincial and regional co-ordinators, and NGOs in their bid to develop opportunities for young people and children in 790 secondary and primary schools throughout the country.