Being a sports volunteer is an extremely rewarding and exciting way to spend your volunteering experience. Sport can bring communities together, contribute to healthier individuals, provide fun a distraction from the harsh realities that surround some children and teach communities valuable lessons in teamwork, leadership and discipline. Sports can also provide an opportunity to engage children in health education and provide a focus that takes them away from having to resort to crime or gangs as a means to pass their time.

It has long been known that sport is a global language. Whether you are in a developed or developing country, the language of sport is spoken almost everywhere. Pick up a football in Brazil and the locals will out-trick you within minutes. Bounce a basketball in the Philippines and the locals will take you in and spare you the time to show you their shooting skills. When sport is involved, you don’t need to exchange words, as the age old saying going ‘Actions speak louder than words’.

With upward of 8,000 known sports in the world, urban and rural communities are developing their mental and physical capacities through personal motivation and kinship. Often, where little money exists, this sense of belonging needs to be heightened and developed, and this is where you can help.

Kaya is using the language of sport to reach out to a greater number of impoverished communities around the world by increasing communication between locals whilst developing programs which will take children healthily, into adulthood. We are helping to increase sporting opportunities in areas where locals may not have the skills or infrastructure to develop this themselves.

As a sports volunteer, you can help to fulfill some of these experiences by teaching in schools, coaching teams, creating organized activities and by passing on your personal experience and knowledge. You don’t need to be a superstar sportsman but some experience, talent and enthusiasm really does go along way.