Bram in South Africa

Participant

Bram

Programme

Internship

Country

🇿🇦 South Africa

Duration

7 weeks

Short bio

My name is Bram and I’m 18 years old. I’m doing the sport and movement course at college, at ROC Midden Nederland. I really enjoy sport, so I like doing it as much as I can.

How satisfied were you with the support before departure?

The support was brilliantly organised. If I had questions before, during or after my internship, Ruben always answered quickly and clearly. Ruben was always ready to think along with me and look for solutions. Thank you so much for that.

My story

“I donated a lot of clothing to the schools there myself. That was fantastic.”

Bram · internship in South Africa

For my course I chose the internationalisation elective module. For this I had to do an internship abroad. After lots of phone calls with Ruben Baarda, I ended up going to South Africa for 7 weeks.

From Holland I went to South Africa, where I ended up at United Through Sport (UTS).
During those 7 weeks I taught sports sessions at primary schools 5 days a week. It’s one of my best experiences. I taught sport to children aged 11-14, and on top of that I taught ‘learn to move’ to the 5-8 year olds for an hour, 3 times a week. With the 11-14 year olds I did football 4 times and basketball once. With the younger children aged 5-8 you mainly played lots of games.
There’s a really big difference between teaching sport to the children there and to the children here in Holland.

During the week I was always busy with coaching. Besides coaching, there were lots of organised activities. Something was organised pretty much every evening, from playing games together to a football tournament. At weekends there were trips organised at a cost, a safari for example. By doing the weekend activities you see a lot of the country, and it’s definitely worth it. As a group we decided to go to Cape Town for a weekend. Cape Town is so different from Port Elizabeth. You can also do some really great activities there, like climbing Table Mountain. Cape Town is definitely recommended.

I donated a lot of clothing to the schools there myself. That was fantastic. I asked around among people I know and sent some emails to big sports clubs asking whether they had anything I could donate. I’m really grateful that I was able to do this, and the reactions from the schools were wonderful.

It was an experience never to forget. I want to say a huge thank you to United Through Sport and The Power of Sports for this wonderful adventure.

What advice would you like to give future interns and volunteers?

If you go abroad, don’t expect everything to be perfect. Here in Holland everything is well organised, and over there it will take some getting used to. Things will often go against you too.