Nittaku Dream Building - El Salvador
El Salvador
The program started with El Salvador Table Tennis Federation, in cooperation with the National Sport Institute, identifying suitable venues in the countryside where there are not many supervised activities available for young people. The ITTF then provided equipment for these venues through sponsors, as well as delivering technical coaching courses and social education of the program coaches
- To use table tennis as a vehicle for a positive individual and social change in communities with lack of opportunities
- To offer a healthy and supervised activity for the spare time of children in risk of gangs engagement
- To spread the table tennis among groups that have difficulties to access the practice of this sport
Japanese Table Tennis Manufacturer, El Salvador Table Tennis Federation, El Salvador National Sport's Institute (governmental sport's agency), 7 Municipalities of small towns or villages with lack of ressources, 2 scholar centers, "Our little brothers and sisters" (Foundation), "Tamarindo" (Fondation)
Context:
El Salvador is a developing country located in Central America with 6 million inhabitants. They suffered a 12 years’ civil war between a military dictatorship and guerrillas. In addition, economic problems and unemployment resulted in a massive migration, mainly to the USA, estimated to be 3 million alone from that country. Some of the social impacts are family disintegration, children without proper supervision and proliferation of gangs (locally called “Maras”). The Maras are one of the main problems in El Salvador. It became urgent to provide to the children tools that could be used for their future and teach them values like respect, tolerance and empathy in order that they do not join gangs later
Project Content:
A general coordinator (GC) was hired full time to supervise the program and the project involved these actions:
- Training of local coaches
- Every week the trained coaches deliver at least two table tennis classes per participants
- Every month the coaches work on a different topic or value with the group (e.g., respect, tolerance and empathy), a list of topics is already distributed. This education is done through chats, games, stories, inviting experts, etc. The GC visits each venue at least once a month.
Objectives:
- Providing a training to local coaches
- Make children learn values and reducing their interests in the fact to join a gang
Impacts and results:
Approximately 600 children attended to the 5 inaugurations
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