Score: Reaching And Empowering Communities Through Sport

This time, the Poetavango Collective brought to Botswana international participants in a sporting project dubbed Sport for Community Regeneration and Empowerment: Integrating Sport Event Management into Youth Work for Enduring Social Impact  (project acronym: SCORE), which was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

The main objective of the program was to train youth workers in the fields of Sport Event Management, Social Impact and Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation in order to develop skills for organising and supporting Sport for Social Impact initiative. The event sought to test and disseminate an innovative model of a training method (developed in the project) based on experimental learning (learning by doing) – trainees in mobility activities will learn by working in the real-world environment of sports event management and Sport for Social Impact Initiatives.

Forty-one (41) participants from Bulgaria, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Turkey arrived in Maun, Botswana, on Monday 27^th February 2017 to partake in the SCORE project which instigates on Tuesday 28^th and culminate on Thursday 9^th. A nine day event, the program was packaged such that it included football tournaments, volleyball and netball games, charity events, workshops and symposiums, training sessions, village tours, community outreach, arts recreation and cultural tours.

For The Poetavango Collective, this activity provided a breath of fresh air, an opportunity to indulge in and experience community sports in lieu of the comfort zones of the arts. 

The Collective is community-based and so it engages on activities with objectives that directly benefit the societies. Although we’re primarily inclined towards the arts, sport is such a collective and communal endeavour, and that is what tickles us – collective responsibility for sustainable community development and social impact.

Funded by the European Union, this project was in partnership with Football Club Inter in Dobrich, Bulgaria as well as local organisations such as Botswana Sports Council.