UK Expert in the impact of sport on community development pays us a visit

Professor Fred Coalter a professor of sports policy and expert in monitoring and evaluation of impact of sports programmes visited Magic Bus. This visit was part of a partnership with UK Sport (www.uksport.gov.uk) the UK Government's department for international development through sport and UNICEF. The visit was part of an ongoing partnership one of the outcomes of which will be a paper written on 4 projects across the world of which Magic Bus will be a case study. Fred's inputs during his feedback workshop have been truly inspiring to the team and his continued mentorship of the programme development team is proving invaluable!

Fred's visit was fully occupied by visiting communities, our sessions, staff weekly training, talking in length with all various departments, more so with the delivery team.

On the last day of his visit he made a presentation on the logic model developed by him & his insights and feedback brought in a lot of value to our work and now we are working closely with Fred to adapt his M&E tool for Magic Bus

Magic Bus curriculum used to tackle Tsunami trauma

Magic Bus delivered its first training of trainers (TOT) module to the staff of child relief project of Tamil Nadu Tribal Development Society (TNTDS) that works for rehabilitation of the tsunami survivors. Ajay and Vinesh, our mentors, ran a 10-day training program, in September; in the tsunami hit area of Cudaloor in Tamil Nadu on using sport as a tool for trauma management. The training focussed on developing the skills of a new team of 30 young teachers who had been hired by TNTDS in using our curriculum to help children traumatized by the disaster.

Basic football and handball skills were used and the staff that were between the ages of 19 to 25 gained confidence and accepted that these games were meant not only for boys but also equally for girls. They learnt how to use the medium of sports, games and songs to develop team spirit, teamwork, confidence, physical growth, leadership, and fun. The TNTDS Staff is now using the training in their work with the children.

This training was sponsored by Railway Children.