STRIDE  - Ethiopia is an Irish charity set up to assist in partnership with the local community in the Education, Community Development Direct Provision of Nutrition and Health Care in Yirgalem Ethiopia through sport . All monies raised go directly to the project and all work done is done entirely on a voluntary basis.

In the summer of 08 club members and local labourers built a wonderful athletics track.It’s probably the second best track in Ethiopia outside of the track in Addis Ababa. Go Stride ! The Club had already renovated the stand.

Follow the Club to Addis

Get on board the Stride Ethiopia buses as they head on the annual trip to Addis Ababa for the Great Ethiopian Run and national children’s races. Hey watch out for the camels! Irrespective of ability all members go on this great weekend away trip.

It’s 20 MBs so it’ll take a few minutes to download if you’ve got broadband.

How it all started

Abush leading Run

It all started in the early mornings in Ethiopia back in 2001 when Dublin based runner Mick Bourke from Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal went there to do voluntary work in a radio station. Mick, an award winning radio sound operator, then on leave of absence from his job in RTE, was working as a radio instructor in Yirgalem in the south of the country.A former member of R.T.E.'s BHAA club, Mick would be on the dirt tracks at six in the morning at an altitude of 7,000 feet to start his daily 5-mile run. And then, like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, he noticed a little barefoot group silently running behind. All children. Among them was 7-year-old called Abush.Bit by bit the morning crew grew into a running club composed of 80 children, almost 50/50 boys and girls, that's now grown into STRIDE  - Ethiopia

Running Club

In addition to adults composed of 80 children

Bourke had supported one local family where both parents were dead, sponsoring the children to attend school and helping with their living expenses.He returned to visit them and to work on Stride. Bourke says "Although they're poor, like children anywhere they have aspirations, they love running, but they've little opportunity to develop and there's no social structure to bring them on."

In a country that's produced athletes of the calibre of Gebreselassie, Bekele and Tulu, running is popular but not organized. Yirgalem, a town of about 20,000 is very poor, and miles away from the relative prosperity of the stadium in Addis Ababa. People in Yirgalem are concerned with basic survival. They live in mud huts, and most families can't afford the €35 annually it costs to send their children to a good school.

Projects

Education

If you listen to the Louise William clip you will hear some of the young athletes speaking English. This is as a result of our English language teaching programme. It was heartening for us to hear the young members speaking some English, something they had been unable to do. It is important that the children and youths develop skills that will help their long-term development and improve their employment opportunities. There are 80 members in the club, with the membership fairly equally divided between boys and girls. The monies raised fund among other things education through coaching provided on an ongoing basis by three Ethiopian coaches and on a voluntary basis leading Irish coach Eddie Mc Donagh. In 07 and 08 Eddie ran separate athletics skills courses for the children and the coaches in Yirgalem and certificates were awarded on completion.

Eddie Mc Donagh teaching the hand over of the baton in August 07. The Club had never done relay races before

As it is hoped that we will be able to assist some of the members to further their education and possibly advance some to third level on athletic scholarships Stride Ethiopia ran English language coursesthroughout 2007 and 2008 that are continuing.English volunteer Celia Brumby taught English for 2 months in the summer of 2008.Irish volunteer barrister John Stanley visited the project at his own expense in August and taught English to Club memebrs for 2 weeks.

In September 08 the club members devised and staged a short drama about a young girl who’s parents didn’t want to let her run. However when they saw the benefit she was deriving from running they changed their views and supported her.

In this very rural area of extreme poverty, in addition to directly providing nutrition we started nutrition education. It is obviously very important where there is little money that members learn how and what to eat on a small budget. We found education to be an important element in our work that could have significant effects. For example, bananas, a vital source of glycogen replacement, are cheap and readily available but had been shunned as cheap food. Club members now eat bananas funded by us on a daily basis. The local bread Injera is also looked down on in favour of white bread. Again through education the members were taught about the superior nutrition value of injera and it is now cooked by the members in the club house .Encouraging club members to move away from drinking fizzy drinks to fresh fruit juices and to actually providing these foods for the members is another example of the ongoing nutrition education we are involved in.

We also provide health education, education in caring for the body and Life Skills Training. Yirgalem is an area where there is a high incidence of HIV/AIDS with some of our club members and their parents living with HIV and AIDS. We informally provide HIV/AIDS education on an ongoing basis. In the case of children who are brought for medical treatment we provide ongoing education in how best to look after themselves after treatment. In the two cases outlined below we provided post treatment dietary and health advice. It was vital for example in the case of the 16 year old girl that she not drink fizzy drinks for example which are known to aggravate her condition of rheumatoid arthritis.

Through the practice of athletics the children are learning and developing skills for life such as discipline, commitment and empowerment. We are particularly delighted that we have so many girls in the clubs and on the committee. This province of Sidama is acknowledged as being male dominated where woman are disempowered. When girls develop skills at an early age, as they are doing through Stride, it will greatly benefit them in the future.

A new aspect of the project is the encouragement of income generation by the club for the club so that it could become more self-sustaining. This entails club members learning about business planning, feasibility assessment, drafting proposals, budgeting, and negotiation and bringing projects to fruition.

Direct Provision of Nutrition

As the children and young adults in Stride are training on a regular basis it was evident that they simply did not have enough food to eat. In ‘07 we decided to directly provide nutrition in the form of daily cooked breakfasts for club members. This is an essential and ongoing provision. The largest amount of money in our 07/08 budget was allocated to food.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. It ranks 92 out of 95 on the UN’s human poverty index with an average life expectancy of 48 years of age. Yirgalem is an area heavily affected by malaria. Food shortages are common, many of the children and youths simply do not have enough to eat, and have significant health problems. Sport is a vital break away from often back breaking work and truncated childhoods and allows the members to regain some part of their childhood and dignity.

Health Care

In addition to providing education in the area of health care as set out above we also directly provide health care in that we provide monies for the treatment of club members who become ill. Among club members treated last year under this programme was a 16 year old girl diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a young woman who had been suffering from amenorrhoea and a young man who had malaria. The two young women needed to be seen by consultants. This would not have happened if Stride had not been there to fund it. Dental work is also provided by Stride. There is no dentist in Yirgalem and people just suffer on and often get very ill from dental problems. Stride funds trips to a dentist and surgeon within an hours drive of Yirgalem. Members simply do not have funds to go themselves. As set out above, explaining what their diagnosis is, paying for medication and providing education as to how best their conditions can be managed was done by Stride.

The local committee elected by the Members runs the project on a day to day basis. Through their involvement with Stride the members are learning budgeting and accounts, organizational skills, English, athletic skills health care and nutrition. Director Emer Woodfull visits the project once a year to assist with planning and agreeing the yearly budget.Eddie Mc Donagh also visits the project on a yearly basis.Development Consultant, nutritionist and Stride Ethiopia Company Member Deirdre Walsh plans to visit the project in 09 to assess the project and consider plans for it’s growth. A very positive aspect of the project is the degree of ownership taken by the Members. It is they who organize all the nutrition programme on the ground, engaging the staff to do the cooking and supervising the clean up rosters etc. There is an appointed member who brings anyone who is ill for medical assessment and treatment.

Upgrade Running Track and put new roof on Yirgalem Stadium

Stride Ethiopia replaced the roof and repaired the stand in the stadium using local labour .In the summer of 08, assisted by former Director Mick Bourke, the Club members and local labourers built a new athletics track.

This work was funded by the Communications Workers Union and RTE One World Fund in Ireland.

In 07 a Club premises was rented .

As the club members operate the project on the ground they are learning about negotiating difficulties budgeting and how to build up a community development project. They are also learning about and passing on coaching skills, and as was already mentioned they are also learning English. All third level education in Ethiopia is through English.

STRIDE  - Ethiopia is small but growing. In addition to sponsporship by Communications Workers Union , it has raised funds by race nights, sponsored walks and poker classics.In 2007 and 2008 the bulk of the funds were raised at fund raising dinners kindly sponsored by the Esplanande Hotel in Bray Co Wicklow. in Bray Co Wicklow.

While the club started with only juniors, there are now also senior teams

We would be most grateful if you felt you were in a position to contribute in any way to our project.A donation by Standing Order gives us a regular income which is essential for forward planning.You can also Make a Direct Lodgement or Send a Cheque.

 

 

 

 

Emer Woodfull's account of her visit to Ethiopia

A Naomi Campbell lookalike is on her mobile ph one in the long queue in arrivals at the airport in Addis. She talks away in a sultry bored way. She’s a young teacher in skin tight jeans and her 20 teenage pupils look on in awe transfixed by this operation . What is it   about the attitude that seems to go with Westernization   ? Does it ever make anyone smile more, or be more gentle ? Mobile ph ones I later learn are somewhat incongrously the in thing to have in a country of searing poverty .

 

Something else that has at long last arrived back in Ethiopia is part of their ancient archaeological heritage. A huge banner hanging at the airport announces “ Welcome Back To The Monuments Of Axum ”. A reference to Ethiopia ,having got back the 1,700 year old obelisk of Axum taken by the Italian during their occupation from 1936-41.

 

Mino , Wubi and my friend Mick meet me. Mino is a 17 year old from the countryside who’s been standing outside in the freezing cold for two hours in a tee shirt as he doesn’t have ID papers necessary for entry into the terminal building . However in typical stoical Ethiopian style he doesn’t complain and he doesn’t tell me this. I hear it later from Mick. He’s never seen a plane before and is wide eyed.It’s strange to standing beside a 17 year old who’s pointing excitedly at the sight of a plane in the night sky. Wubi on the other hand is a 9 year old with attitude. His cherubic face is framed with thick black girlie curls which he refuses to cut despite being berated for having long hair by every Ethiopian man we meet. Then there’s Mick a co director of the running club Stride Ethiopia and the man on the ground there for about 6 months of the year.

 

Into Addis in the dark night along the streets where women with babies and men with crutches dressed in rags bang their arms or stumps on the window of the battered Lada taxi when we stop at lights. Into the very faded grandeur of the Taitu hotel where the Princess wife of the Emperor Menelik provided accommodation for their friends at the start of the century. Into this hotel where the cleaning staff polish the creaking wooden floors by skating slowly slowly on the pads of cloth under their shoes. Where the grand curved wooden staircase leads to a vaulted landing adorned with huge Ethiopian crosses carved in dark wood and where the strong incense wafts up from below during the evening coffee making ceremony.Where the waitresses neatly dressed in black and white stand silent statuesque guard on either side of the dining area door while the television rattles on endlessly in the corner. Where it is all standing still and still standing ,just about, and where the battered bathroom floors are part lino descending into part bare concrete and where the water comes on only in the evening.       

 

The waitresses do however spring to life , loose all practised mannerisms, jump around excitedly and cry out when one of their idols the female distance athlete Tirunesh Dibaba comes on the television and burns a path around the track at a race meeting in Zurich definitively dismissing the competitors in her wake.

 

Mick wants to show me the Sheraton before we head off into the countryside .It’s a source of controversy as it sits right in the middle of mud floored shanties .Some aid workers and indeed some oil workers I’ve met think it is gross and boycott it .You do get a bit of a shock when you see the contrast. It’s unusual to find such a huge ostentatious building located right on the door step of buckled pavements and muddy shacks smelling of   poverty. An article published in the Washington Post claimed that the hotel consumed more than 25% of all the electricity produced for this city of 2 million .

 

At the Sheraton you get searched going in and somewhat unusually going out. The entrance is lined by tacky tall orange and yellow plastic palm trees that have obviously tricked the real beautiful birds perched on their garish fronds. It’s the usual plush international standard of fresh flowers and gleaming marble floors inside. Mino has never been in a lift, and is terrified when the doors close and it jolts off , but then he beams as it glides up. “ Sheraton, Good ” he announces. So here he is reeling from the Sheraton experience and here we are providing him with the western poison of comparasion. Yesterday for Mino, who had never stayed in a hotel in his life, the Taitu was “ good ” meriting a big thumbs up and a beaming smile ,but a mere 24 hours later , in light of the glitter and gleam of the Sheraton, the Taitu seems tarnished and shabby.

 

Onwards to Yirgalem which is a 10 hour bus ride from the muck thick Addis bus depot. It’s unusual I discover for foreigners “ faranji” to travel by public transport . 10 hours later I know why that is. However as we’re a three person charity and don’t take any expenses or salary from monies raised the relatively high cost of renting a car and driver is not on.

 

People we meet think Mick and I are a couple, which we’re not, and that we’ve adopted the two children with us, which we haven’t .They probably very correctly think however we’re a bit odd as we load a javelin and shot putt onto the overhead shelf of the bus adorned with a frill of plastic roses over the driver’s seat and a large hanging framed picture of the Virgin Mary. A stream of tissue sellers, water sellers, banana sellers and cheap biscuit sellers parade on and off the three to a seat bone shaker before it growls and rattles off   . On to Yirgalem plunging in and out of craterous pot holes to the sounds of taped high pitched wailing female Arabic style singing played at full volume in the hot sun. No windows open mind as there’s a superstition about wind.

Past the children swimming in mud coloured pools, past the vibrant red and electric blue coloured birds, past the pelicans and the circling buzzards , past the boy sitting alone way out in the field under the shade of the flat topped acacia tree, past all the people moving always moving along the roads. Heavily pregnant women , elderly men stooped over walking sticks. Moving to where?   Past the “tukuls”,the rounded little mud huts with grass conical roofs and walls painted with naïve art Bart Simpson lookalike married couples holding hands or of a square shaped man simply out running. Always the running filtering through .

 

At long last into Yirgalem a town of 20,000 with it’s as ph alt main street lined with small dark shops, a wrought iron maker’s shop, a few barber’s shops glistening and white in their strip lighting. and a café or two. The mud is starting to cake and dry out a bit on the side roads where children urinate in public. Children dart out from dark mud huts, and shout excitedly , “ Mickeeee, Mickeeee !”    Mick the Faranji Runner is back in town. Beggars in filthy rags hobble up hands outstretched. Beautiful children with skin disorders take you by the   hand and beam up at you. A crowd gathers. A cry of “ Faranji, Faranji ” goes up, and they say “ You, You, You ”   I haven’t quite figured out exactly what that’s about but you hear it wherever you go in Ethiopia. Walking a few days later in another village 20 minutes away I   tell Mick that I wouldn’t have caused as big a stir if I’d walked naked down O’Connell Street in Dublin. Donegal Mick wryly says “That would have caused less of a stir .”  

It’s unusual nowadays for simply the sight of a white person walking down a street to cause squeals of surprise with children running to get other children to some and just look . I only ever remember getting this type of reaction about 15 years ago in rural Sri Lanka , but never since. An aid worker later explains that they would not see foreigners in this area, certainly not walking around. “ What foreigners they see ”   she explains” drive by in four wheel drives and throw pens or sweets out the windows .”

  I give nothing, and certainly feel the guilt. I simply wouldn’t know where to start and stop , who to choose who to ignore. I decide that I’ll do what little I can do through the Stride Ethiopia running club on as fair a basis as it can be done. I remember reading somewhere many moons ago at university that whatever you do in development try at least not to do damage. Think of the fall out from every action you take in a community and how what you do changes them in some way. Probably often   not for the better, I ponder. So what am I doing here ? Probably I’m here from a combination of loving pure running having been reared watching every rain sodden cross country race my father could drag me to, to finding a welcome relief from the tedium and alienation of the long playing acquisitive Celtic Tiger record to believing that you can make a difference to someone in some very small way by your actions.

But I’m thin on delusions about that. Every single move you make is watched and noted. I make the mistake of letting my gaze rest just that extra few seconds on a small boy with a crusty white skin disorder , a huge grin and sticky out ears .Hours later he follows me unrelentingly chanting “ money money money ”. In a hungry town you’re white therefore you’ve money therefore you’re a link to food. Another small boy chirps up, “ You’re my mother, me rich ” Not that they have distended bellies in the style of the classic African media portrait,but they are hungry . When you see a young girl and her little brother, always wearing the same filthy outfits, waiting at the gate every morning at 6 am in the hope of having breakfast bought , you know they’re hungry.  

 

But on to the business of running, and walking down the main street to the stadium at 5.45 am. It’s chilly and misty and one by one they quietly come out of their mud houses. Pure resolve. That familiar heavier breathing , the regular footfall, the absence of any idle chatter, they glide by you with a wave and a smile. Each runner stops for a second and blesses themselves as they pass the huge part built church propped up by it’s thin wooden scaffolding looking like a Fitzcarraldo type project eerily rising up in the middle of all the poverty.

 

The stadium is unkempt. Half the roof of the stand is missing. It’s got a dirt track which is a sticky buttery mud path this morning . A striking looking tall thin boy in raggy clothes herding cows and goats put down his stick and joins the training session. Shoes are a luxury that few possess. Tigist , whom we have sponsored for a year to train full time to free her from unpaid life as a maid has shoes however. She proudly whips out the pair she won racing at a meeting in Addis . She also now has graduated to having red nails. All the signs of a star in the making!.This petite lithe 16 year old is   as tough as boots. She heads off with the senior men , looks like she’s just stretching her legs and glides along at a pace like a gazelle. Other equally determined children join in. A little shoeless girl with cornrow plaited hair and a determined expression, dressed in dirty old shorts joins in and effortlessly changes gear from the high kicks to sprinting. And then beatifically smiles at the end of it all.           

Gizege the deaf old boxing coach is a kind man who warmly clutches your hand in both his hands when he meets you shows no mercy however to the athletes. Gizege   uses shoes as marker points and he roars out even though he’s stone deaf. Shisema the younger coach is a quiet spoken thoughtful young man who never raises his voice, but who commands great respect. He hands me his training schedule and asks what I think . You may wonder what on earth we’re doing in a country that produces such superb distance athletes and what we might have to offer.There are clubs in the main cities and towns but out here there was nothing much. When Mick a good athlete   arrived in 2001 to work in an advisory capacity on the local radio station there was little running going on. But then when he did his regular morning runs more children joined in and bit by bit a club was formed.   That club has become the 80 member Stride Ethiopia that funds bringing children to competitions, buys gear on an annual basis, brings children to Addis to take part in the great Ethiopian Run and sponsors some athletes for whom running may become a career to train full time.

 

“ Ethiopians are good runners for many reasons” says Tadesse Tesfake a young youth and sports officer. “ Apart from training at altitudes of up to 2,500 metres, they are very strong from being used to carrying heavy loads as part of their daily life. They are also very determined.” He’s right about that .They are mentally tough. At the race meeting a few days later a young woman tells me that she’s very worried about her mother who has bad problems with her stomach. A health expert here has told me that there’s cholera in this region. “ Officially its described as watery diahorrea but it’s cholera” she says . Despite her worries this young woman goes out in the midday heat and runs a blistering 3000 metres. Even though these children   come from a small town , are running at about 2000 metres , have no shoes , and are poorly nourished they roll out Irish championship times.   

  Nobody has thought to bring water to the meeting. That would be an extra. So they just pretty much collapse at the end of the race and lie down and rest till it all passes. As usual no one complains or whinges. Where would it get you anyway.?  

It’s the same at the gear handing out ceremony which they insist on having. They cut eucalyptus branches to line the worn stone steps in the stand where we are to sit . They rhythmically clap as we approach the stand . A young teacher says, “ They wont stop until you  acknowledge the clapping ” . A nod is all it takes. The gear is given out and nobody opens it to see what they got. They accept whatever they get and are more concerned about saying thanks to Mr Mick . A girl , whom we had been told “ had no morals ” pluckily and clearly speaks out in Amharic. We’re told she’s said “ We thank you for doing what neither our parents nor the government have done for us .” Having no morals it transpires entailed her having argued with someone who had done something she had considered unfair at another race meeting. This girl goes up in my estimation .It’s unusual for girls to speak out in Ethiopia. The young male teacher explains, “ It’s harder for girls .They’re usually the ones who drop  out of school to run the home. Many of the fathers have died or have just left the family .Many of the mothers are ill or worn out so the girls take on the chores. Also it’s seen that men may be less interested in marrying them if they stay in education.”    

 

 

Sahai is a talented young runner in just that situation. She has no father and had dropped out of school to run the house. We call to see her. She is a gentle girl who lives in a dark mud hut. She had dropped out of school .We have sponsored her to allow her to go back to school and to train. We try and encourage her to stay in education but we’ll have to wait and see.

 

Then there are the days that follow of hours and hours of listening and trying to figure out what the club needs . The way it works in Amharic is that you don’t interrupt a speaker. You might ask a simple question like how many are in the club ? The translator asks that question. The respondent speaks maybe for 10 or 15 minutes and you might then get a one word succinct answer from the translator who then simply says, “ 65”. To my surprise top of the list repeatedly is “ food”.  Mr Mick and I disagree about this. I can understand why he thinks we shouldn’t provide food as we’re a running club. We ask other experienced Irish and Ethiopian aid workers .They say it’s okey to give food to runners who are already getting very little to eat, and who would certainly need it given the extra energy expended on running. So on a limited budget who do we feed ? The runners say the poorest. I don’t like this at all, but we draw up criteria for selection. I ask them to draw up a list . This feels all wrong. I look at the list and see some of the comparatively prosperous children in the town included .That ends that. We know that any selection will cause division and discrimination so we decide to feed them all the very small amount they are asking for and will worry about finding the money afterwards.

 

After long days of listening , negotiating and noting my fast approaching return flight my legal light finally goes on. I sit in my room and draft a club structure. Get something down on paper and then amend it. Meetings and more meetings. A committee is formed . A budget agreed and of course even though it’s small it’s more than we have . People volunteer to do different tasks. A document is signed. The “ girl with no morals ” who spoke up is selected as the person nominated to take any complaints of sexual harassment in the club. And she speaks up again. “ This is good. It is now clear what we are doing and how we are to do it .”   It’s a learning curve for all of us. We came with a loose plan to build a small club house with showers. That has now become a plan to build a   6 lane cinder track which would be of much greater immediate use and would mean they can attract competitions to their area. That however leaves us with exactly one day to get planning permission before we leave . And that long next day is spent wheeling and dealing with officials. Working your way up through the required protocol of more minor officials, trying to stay calm and be patient under pressure, until you eventually track down the Mayor, arrange a meeting with him, run up and down the streets in torrential rain to use the PC in the barber’s shop to type up an agreed grant of planning permission. Going back , getting it signed, and flopping down in a chair at 9 pm with a rain dappled official purple stamped page.

 

And then it’s back on the mad 10 hour jaunt to Addis this time on a bus “ entertained” by a litany of various bellowing priests , one of whom rages on for an hour non stop about the evils of sin. And finally by plane to Lallibella in the north for a day, to the   sacred place of pilgrimage for Christian Orthodox followers and said to house the Ark of the Covenant . It is here in this UNESCO world heritage site home of 11 twelfth century churches built   into the rock from ground level down that the biblical stories you heard as a child suddenly make sense . You see priests preaching under trees to small groups and breaking and distributing bread. One of churches   echoes the story of Noah’s Ark. There’s a window with an opening to let the people and animals in and there’s a window that’s blocked closed to keep the floods out. Given that 350 people have just died in Ethiopia in flooding it all makes sense. It is hard however to get a feeling of spirituality as the wearied priests in their ancient churches stand to get their ph otos taken holding the ancient crosses of Lallibella and querying why you don’t take a picture. When you explain that you have no Birr with you they do not offer to have it taken for free.

 

On the flight up a young returning Ethiopian American eight year old girl sporting high heeled fake diamond studded boots and a pink tee shirt emblazoned with   “ Daddy’s Girl ” berates her young Amharic speaking Ethiopian Mother. “ Don’t tell me what to do. I am not a child .I need more Sprite . NOW!! ” and “ I am soooo bored! Are we there yet ? ”, as she dramatically throws herself forward on the seat. I would love to have been able to follow her to see how she reacts when she meets her much poorer relatives brandishing her blonde maned My Little Pony. Having spent several weeks with Ethiopian children who are so at ease I am shocked by her behaviour. It’s like being slapped in the face with a wet rag.I think of the many toddlers on the long bus journeys who simply never cried but just accepted that they’d get when they got there and that crying wouldn’t actually hurry things up.

 

And then to leaving Addis. The young talented 3000 metre runner with the sick mother who works long hours as a meter maid holds my hands.   “ Please do not forget me. Running is my life. I am lonely in Addis. When I go back to Yirgalem I am running in a club that is my family , ” she says. As always in Ethiopia there is just one more thing. “ Please please find me a pair of shoes .” And I don’t forget her and I don’t think I ever will. A young American lecturer I’ve met volunteers her shoes when I tell her the story. Bingo, they are the right size. I break my rule of not singling out and the shoes are dispatched off down the long bockedy road to Yirgalem .

Experience of teaching Summer 2008

Letter From Celia B

 

I have been here for three weeks now having spent five months teaching in Uganda and Tanzania and I think it is the most rewarding time I’ve spent in Africa. I am teaching the club members English everyday for four hours and more when the schools break up for their holidays and due to the dedication and desperation to learn I have seen an improvement in the students English already.

 I train with the students four times a week at 6am which I’m really loving, the students are so supportive towards each other and me, being the new one around and not nearly as fit as them. The students then get breakfast and by the way I saw them tuck into a big bowl of pasta with sauce and fresh bread the other day, you can tell they are really grateful (and really hungry!) For many of them it is the only proper meal they get that day.

 There is total agreement that food prices have increased massively compared to the static salaries they are making. It is becoming increasingly difficult to eat so the Stride Club is doing great work in providing a hearty meal on the training days. The students are also learning the importance of good health, nutrition and the value of different, available foods.

 I teach from 10am until 12am, this class is flexible as some students have classes only in the mornings one week and only in the afternoon the next. Not all of the club members are in full time education so the class is there for whoever can attend and there is a good number daily. I also teach after school hours from 5pm until 7pm so those at school get a chance to come to the classes as well. They are so attentive in class and want to speak to me at every opportunity to practice their English. Many people in the village come and talk to me when I’m having coffee or when I’m by the Clubhouse waiting for a class, everybody wants to learn English.

 The Clubhouse itself has such a nice atmosphere and provides the students with a great home away from home where they can spend time with their friends, playing pool, using the weights room or just talking and socializing. The community is well aware of the club and many young people come to use the pool table and the weights room as well. The younger children in the community are also very interested in the club and often come to the stadium in the mornings to run along side the older ones or simply to watch with the hope of joining the club the minute they are old enough and the club can accommodate them. The Club provides so much more than just athletics training and sporting opportunities, the mixing of these young people with similar goals and aspirations is wonderful and they are all good friends and supportive of one another. They have welcomed me with open arms and put every effort into learning as much English from me as they can, they know the importance of good English in their futures and if they want to be successful, which the club has taught them that they can be. 

 I would love to stay for longer and I know that the students would benefit from the teaching and from an outside influence to share experiences and knowledge. Having completed University I need to return to England to find a job but I really love it here and want to savour every moment.

 The students are so lucky and are benefitting greatly from the efforts of you and the other directors in Ireland.