Since a few months I have been the leader of Sportslink Zambia. The first 2 months I haven’t done much with this because I had many other responsibilities as well. Now I have the time to focus on Sportslink and I thought it is good to give some explanation.

As a Sportslink we are currently working on 5 places in Zambia. Both in cities and in more remote areas in the countryside. We work with both boys and girls, with different believes. In the communities and remote areas, life is sometimes hard and there is a lack of good example figures. Many teenagers start drinking or getting married, because they simply don’t know better. By sport we give them a better alternative than the bar. We have programs like Whole Life Coaching, which focuses not only on the skill in sport but on all aspects of life in order to develop the young people in a complete way. We also do Bible studies with the teams we work with. And we also help teams to set up for example, a vegetable garden, to support their team.

At each of these 5 places we have a coordinator. If we want to do something with sports in those 5 areas, it goes through the coordinator. He/she has his own team with people to work with. And the intention is that the people they work with will develop others. In this way we try to be a movement.

My role is that I am the leader of all this. If 1 of the coordinators has questions or needs something, he will come to me. Or even if the leaders of OM or another department need something from sport, it goes through me. I see my role mainly to strengthen the coordinators in the various places. Most of them I have visited over the years, even before I was the leader. And in some places I have had some influence to get the sport ministry started. Even if someone wants to work with us in a place where we are not yet working, it goes through me. I will see how we can help that person further and be part of our team. Our goal is also to provide trainings throughout the country, both in places where we are already working as in places where we are not working yet. We also have the vision to develop people so that they can go out to other countries as a missionary coach.

We also started implementing the Sport Leadership Academy (SLA). This is a program to develop leaders and walk a journey with them in sports. This happens at 3 different levels. Level 1 starts with a 3 to 5-day training, after which several modules must be put into practice in the 3 months thereafter. Every completed part is checked off and when everything is finished, Level 1 is completed. If they want to go further, they can continue with level 2, this starts with the training we have every year in April and can take up to 2 years before all modules are completed. Level 3 is still in development. Most modules and parts of this program are not new and the coordinators have been doing many of those things for a long time. My aim is in the coming months to see what exactly they have done within this program and what they still have to work on. And the coordinators should do the same with their team members.

There are also some administrative tasks. We try to publish a newsletter 2 times a year. And every year we have to write a project plan for the following year, which also includes a budget. This is then presented within the system of OM and if another OM field sees potential in this then they can make a donation. We also need to report every year what we have done and show how we have spent donations we have received.

At the moment we have a small team next to the 5 coordinators. My assistant lives in another city and he is also busy with many other things as well. Then here in Kabwe is yet another Dutchman who works partly with us. I hope, and this is my prayer too, that the team grows. That we go to work in more places, this means we get more coordinators as well. But also that the team here in Kabwe grows and that we get more people who can go out to give trainings and can take on some other (administrative) tasks as well.

In the coming months I hope to be out a lot. To see what is happening within Sportslink Zambia, but also to ensure that the Sport Leadership Academy gets implemented well. In addition to my responsibility in Sportslink Zambia, I also remain active in the sports training in April and the Ride 2 Transform Malawi.