| Steve Reynolds' African Adventure |
NORTH 16 GROUP TEAM MANAGER, STEVE REYNOLDS IN SWAZILAND
In June 2007 I was fortunate to have been granted a sabbatical by my school, Birkdale School in Sheffield. The terms of that sabbatical were that I had to 'work' in ‘education" and ‘youth’ and I was due to go to Georgia in Eastern Europe. However, that fell through in December and I sent an email to a charity called Touraid in the hope that I could be of service to them and equally they could help me. Andy Berry, the CEO of Touraid, contacted me and put me in touch with Michael Collinson in Swaziland.
Michael is president of the Swaziland Rugby Union and the founder and CEO of a rugby charity SKRUM (Swazi Kids Rugby Union Mission) working with schools on a rugby and HIV / AIDS and Gender Violence Awareness programme. Michael said he would be pleased to host me. I jumped at the chance as, having been on rugby tour to South Africa twice, I had fallen in love with Southern Africa.
Michael’s idea for SKRUM is a simple one (aren’t all the best?). His mission, and the purpose of SKRUM, is to introduce rugby into every school in the Kingdom. This is to be achieved by running a series of rugby days based at a local High School and all the junior feeder schools be invited to attend. Very few schools have even heard of rugby let alone played it so it really is pioneering stuff. The plan is to put on a series of rugby activities for about 100 kids running throughout the day. The kids will be grouped and rotate through each of the different activities - one of which will be an HIV / AIDS awareness (43% of the population is HIV positive – 49% of the female population is positive, life expectancy here is 38 years and 66% of 15 year olds will die of AIDS) and Gender abuse and violence unit, based on materials provided by SWAGAA (Swazi Action Group Against Abuse) and NERCHA (National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS).
The past couple of weeks have been spent preparing all the materials we will need and identifying and mapping all the schools in the country (700 in an area the size of Wales). We will be ‘out on the road’ when the schools open again after their break and we are planning to do the ‘bush’ schools first. The roads here are interesting! There are several tar roads running through the country but most are ‘government maintained’ dirt roads. These are not too bad but we need a 4x4 to travel them. However, the bush schools are off these, on just dirt roads and in some cases (probably most) it will take us a couple of hours to negotiate about 7kms. When we arrive I will probably be the first white man the kids will have ever seen. Poor little mites having me as the example of the Caucasian race!
A massive undertaking, but we believe in what we are doing - giving despondent kids hope and trying to make a difference.
This is best summarised by SKRUM’s by-line
‘Pushing for a better future’
Steve Reynolds
