I am about to begin an adventure that I have been researching, planning and thinking about for the last 7 months. I’ll soon be in Cape Town, South Africa to work for Hoops 4 Hope, working in the township of Guguletu, which is 15 km outside of Cape Town. H4H partners with schools and local community organizations to bring children and young adults to the safe environment of the basketball court in order to foster youth development.
As many of you know, I just finished my sophomore year at Brown University where I play on the women’s basketball team. During my first two years at Brown, I have become very interested and involved in an emerging field of study known as sport for development, which explores how sport can be used as a tool for individual, community, and societal development. I travel to Cape Town with many questions that I hope to answer by working with this NGO for the next 6 weeks. In particular, I will investigate the intersection of sport and youth development within the country’s struggling majority population to evaluate whether the power of sport can be effective in HIV/AIDS education among the high-risk local population.
In this blog I hope to share my thoughts on the effectiveness of this approach to community development. But I also hope to share some fun, interesting stories about my adventures in the “Mother City.”
I am very grateful to have been given this opportunity through the Royce Fellowship for Sport and Society. I want to thank all of my friends, teammates, Brown basketball coaches, and faculty for supporting me. I am especially grateful for my mom, dad, and brother’s constant love, support, and confidence in me as I jet off to this far away place.
Will get back to you when I arrive in Cape Town!
Lindsay
No comments:
Post a Comment