Do you remember Krishna Chaudhary, the great sport man who wants to become the next ENGAGE Corps by coaching a team of wheelchair players?
Good News as Krishna is not alone. Devi Acharya also expressed her strong desire to become a Corps.
Also in this case, we are talking about a remarkable citizen: Devi is one of the board members of Nepal Spinal Cord Sports Association, a key partner of ENGAGE and she is also Treasurer of the Center for Independent Living, a leading local Not for Profit in the disability sector.
In short Devi has a very busy life, advocating, fund raising and working hard to press the issues related to disabilities. Despite her crazy schedules, Devi loves sports and has been playing basketball since more than 2 years though she admitted that sometimes she could not train as much as she wanted due her official engagements. But Devi loves new challenges and she is really interested to the idea of becoming a coach.
We met Devi last Saturday after an outreach program organized by NSCISA that was followed by a small training delivered by ENGAGE on volunteerism. During the training we talked about volunteerism, what it is, how it works. We highlighted that volunteerism is not a western “construct” but rather western inventions like time banking found inspiration on many grassroots tradition of self help you find in Nepal.
During the training, Simo also mentioned ENGAGE’s goal of recruiting new ENGAGE Corps among the current players. As soon as the training was over, Devi approached us and we started talked. By expressing her desire to be part of ENGAGE as ENGAGE Corps, Devi made us super happy.
And there is a reason why we were super happy: this year we set a very ambitious goal: FINDING ENGAGE CORPS members, our volunteering coaching program, among persons living with disabilities rather than just relying on persons without disabilities.
So far we have Krishna and Devi and soon we will work with them to plan how we can set up new teams. One option would be to find new youths living with disabilities to form the teams within the Valley of Kathmandu. Another option would be setting up mixed junior teams made by children with and without disabilities.
Very recently during our super leadership training delivered by our Advisor and friend Mike Rosenkrantz, also famous as “Coach Mike”, the ENGAGE Team played together with wheelchair users players and it was a great fun, just imaginable. It was so memorable that we decided to play at least once in a month with our friends the players.
Then why not having Krishna and Devi respectively coaching mixed junior teams? The idea is as simple as amazing: bringing children together regardless of their physical appearances or conditions. Together children with disabilities and without disabilities can have great fun but also set a new mindset that will look at disabilities with a different perspective.
This year ENGAGE wants to set up at least one junior mixed team and we need to hurry up in planning everything. As per our forecasts, we believe it takes few months before being able to facilitate the creation of a new team.
You would not believe how much work is behind setting up a team: doing a full mapping and brainstorming exercise; finding the players through awareness creation events in the colleges and schools; visiting schools and college to find youths who want to become ENGAGE Corps Coaches; make sure that everybody who wants to be involved is really serious about that and this implies a very strong selection process, followed by training and capacities building; signing the mandatory Code of Conduct that proves the seriousness of both players and coaches in being involved with ENGAGE; matching the coaches with the teams; start working with players to set their own Personalized Development Pathway where the players embarking in this journey, can achieve and implement their set life and professional goals.
As you can see, a lot of work…while all challenging, it is damned fun and super exciting!!!!
We are very confident that professionals like Devi and Krishna can, not only become ENGAGE Corps but also help us setting up the new teams. We will soon meet and work out a detailed “road map” that will bring us to have one new male team and one more female team.
If a youth without disability can coach a team of wheelchair basketball players, why not the opposite? Everything is possible in life….Persons like Devi and Krishna are proving that, day after day.
While the society is not inclusive yet, change happens through small incremental steps but do not be confused: having Devi and Krishna as Corps members is not a small incremental step, it is rather a milestone!!!
Big thanks to Devi; we are looking forward to work with you and Krishna to reach new ambitious goals to promote inclusive volunteerism.
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