Kick It with Kenya Report
Patrick Odoyo
30 August 2009
I am pleased to report on the highly successful 2009 Kick It With Kenya Community Outreach Program (KIWK) held from August 9-14. The program was held at Yago Primary School, which is within a mile from Dago Village. Yago was selected as the location because of better facilities and its location closer to the Ranen town center and the main road. As far as the logistics of the program, we had six off-duty police officers at the program for the first five days and twelve officers for the final day of the tournament. In addition, we had five youth security officers on call in case of trouble. We believed this was necessary given the high emotions and problems with drunkenness sometimes exhibited by spectators at sports tournaments. We are happy to report, however, that other than a minor incident where a team was upset about an official’s call, there were no major security incidents. Further, we had eight referees in total, four for the men’s soccer tournament and four for the women’s netball tournament. We had 15 officials selected from each participating team. In addition, we had three representatives from each team assisting in the logistics of the tournament. Also, 15 people from Dago’s Youth Mentor Outreach Program and officials from Yago Primary School assisted in helping make sure the program went smoothly. We provided lunch and drinks to officials and volunteers who worked long hours each day to ensure the program’s success. The balls used during the tournaments were new balls that had been donated. Finally, we asked local kids to help with clean-up each day and asked Dago orphanage kids to provide entertainment during breaks by singing and performing.
Through a prior donation, we had 40 water filtration buckets, which enabled us to provide clean water to participants, medical teams, volunteers and attendees. Volunteers from the Youth Mentor Outreach Program coordinated the distribution of water. It was particularly beneficial to have this service available as the teams had not made their own arrangements for water distribution. The water filtration buckets were set up in one room and water was distributed to teams and individuals who were responsible for bringing their own containers. The children seemed particularly pleased to have clean water to drink during the long, hot days of the program.
Day one of program, Sunday, kicked off the soccer and netball tournaments and saw approximately 1500 spectators for the games. There were 24 teams participating with 360 individual participants. There were 12 men’s soccer teams and 12 women’s netball teams. Teams came from as far away as 3hours to participate in the program. The first day was an exhibition day for the teams, but the teams nonetheless played very competitively. Unfortunately, there were two injuries on the first day when two players collided. The players were taken to a nearby hospital for stitches, but the players were released and later returned to play in the tournament.
Monday was the second day of the program and the official start of tournament play. Kenya’s Red Cross was hired to attend each day with six people providing medical support. The Red Cross has provided us with a report of their activities and it is attached for your review. The team treated 186 people during the course of the tournament, including one serious compound fracture injury requiring referral to a local medicine doctor. A funny moment happened and the crowd got a good show from a Red Cross official one time when he ran out on the field to get an injured player and his pants fell down as he was carrying the player off the field on a cot.
We also had an HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing team at the program beginning on Monday and continuing daily through Friday. There were five team members servicing attendees each day. There was high demand for this service and the number of team members could have easily been doubled to accommodate the demand. The Dago Youth Outreach Team assisted the Counseling team with patients. We had two rooms of the Yago school reserved for testing. The testing team members were at desks inside the classrooms while the Youth Outreach Team coordinated those waiting to be tested. The Outreach Team member would give those being tested a number and recorded the test takers age. Once inside the classroom, the counselor recorded the test takers mother’s name only for privacy reasons. The counselor then discussed HIV/AIDS with those being tested and ramifications of a positive result. After counseling, the test was administered, which only required a small amount of blood and took approximately ten minutes. A second test was simultaneously given to ensure the accuracy of the results. Further discussion was held with the counselor after the results were confirmed. The team tested 561 program attendees throughout the week with 34 HIV-positive results. (The report of the testing team is attached.) Those that were HIV positive received additional counseling on site and were also referred to Afya II HIV awareness program (coordinated by Pamela Odoyo in partnership with USAID).
On Monday, we also had general treatment provided by Awendo Health Center to children under five. In total, 164 children were treated, including 72 children immunized, 10 malnourished children treated, and 82 treated for other health reasons.
The next few days of the program continued the success of the first two days. We had four general health professionals from Migori District Hospital at the program providing free medical services and distributing free medicine. The general health doctors provided treatment for various ailments to over 233 patients over a three-day period.
In addition to the general health professionals, we also had an optometrist giving free eye exams from Tuesday through Friday of the program. Dr. Samwel Jmbue from Mgori Eye Clinic distributed approximately 100 pairs of free eyeglasses and performed over 200 free eye exams. For those that were unable to get free eyeglasses, Dr. Jmbue gave them a referral to nearby eye clinics after performing eye examinations.
On Thursday, attendees had a special treat of watching an exhibition soccer game by a Premiere League Team. Sony Sugar agreed to send their team to perform a friendly game for the tournament. Two players from each of the 12 tournament teams were selected to play against Sony’s professional team. The game gave spectators a chance to rally behind the local team. Unfortunately, however, the professional team was too much for the local players and beat them 7-0. The players were thrilled by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play against professional players. We were happy that the Sony coach selected eight players from the local teams to try out for Sony’s professional team.
Friday was the final day of the program. A dental team from St. Joseph’s District Hospital was on site performing free dental exam and organizing follow-up treatment. A total of 64 dental exams were performed in just one day.
The last day was also a culmination of the soccer and netball tournaments. The top four teams battled it out in exciting semi-final and final matches. Yago women won the netball tournament and Kokuro men won the soccer tournament. We are happy that Dago won third place in both netball and soccer. At 51 years old, Pamela Odoyo played each day as the goal scorer for Dago and got forth best top scorer of the tournament. That is just one of the reasons why she has been named “Super Mama” by volunteers. Thanks to the fundraising efforts of so many people, the winning teams received balls, uniforms and cash prizes. An awards ceremony took place on Friday afternoon. Speeches were given by the Chief of the area, me, chairman of the tournament, a Yago official, Duncan Odoyo on behalf of Dago, and Susan Gainey Odoyo. Susan talked about Village Volunteers and thanked everyone for supporting the event. She also got a big laugh from the crowd when she told them that she would personally tell Obama that he should be very proud of Kenyans for their support of the tournament. The awards were then given out to the winning teams. The first place teams received 24 complete uniforms, two balls, 500 Shillings and a trophy. The second place teams received 24 complete uniforms and one ball. The third place soccer team received 15 shirts. The third place netball team received two balls. Further, the top scorer for netball and soccer received a trophy (we had a tie for top scorer in soccer) and the most disciplined teams as selected by the officials received trophies. (We felt it was necessary to award the most disciplined teams to encourage youths to follow rules and act in a sportsmanlike manner, which is not always done by youths participating in sports matches in Kenya.) Finally, t-shirts were given to the officials and organizers who helped throughout the course of the program.
KIWK was an overwhelming success. In addition to the large number of patients receiving medical treatment, we estimate that there were approximately 3000 attendees each day watching the games. Additionally, we did some community outreach with children attendees asking them to clean the grounds in exchange for sweets. The local economy in and around Ranen was boosted by the program as spectators bought drinks, food and paid for transportation to the event. There will be additional benefits from the program as a coach training program has been organized for each of the coaches who participated in the event. It is estimated that approximately 30 coaches will participate in the follow-up training event with a trainer coming from Nairboi.
A representative from the media was at the event on Thursday and Friday and conducted interviews with me, the Sony coach, Susan Gainey Odoyo and the KIWK chairperson, Michael Ochieng. KIWK was reported on the local radio stations, Ramogo, Victoria and Lwuambe FM. It was also on NSTV, a national TV station. I have submitted photographs and information to the reporter and I expect that it may also be reported on another national TV station, NTV, and national newspapers, Nairobi Metro and East African Standard. I have requested copies of the news reports. If I receive copies of the media reports, I will forward them to you.
Thank you so much for the support to make KIWK a resounding success. Although I will not mention each person by name, we had tremendous support from people donating soccer balls, uniforms, socks, soccer training manuals, water filtration buckets, baseball caps, helping with training the Dago players and delivery of donations from the U.S., among numerous other things. Everyone at Village Volunteers should be very proud of the lives that were improved during this event. This program would not have been possible without the support of Village Volunteers, Shana Green and the KIWK team, donators and volunteers. Given the success of this year’s event, I hope that we can make it a yearly event.
Patrick