– Rotary Assistant District Governor, Rebecca Low, announced today that in the last week, over 2500 children, educators and coaches participated in Rotary-led sports activities and training camps as part of Rotary International’s newest global initiative, Vocational Training Teams. This Vocational Training Team hails from Rotary District 7090 (Niagara, Canada and northern New York state) and will be on island until March 31.
Assistant District Governor Low stated, “we are very thankful that this team is sharing their time and talents with children, teachers and coaches on our island. From dusk until dawn this team’s presence can be seen and felt – from being in classes alongside teachers to playing with kids in both formal and informal after-school activities. Lifelong relationships are being forged.”
A vocational training team (VTT) is a group of Rotarian and non-Rotarian professionals who travel to another country either to learn more about their profession or to teach local professionals about a particular field. Hands-on activities vary from one team to the next but may include training medical professionals on cardiac surgery and care, sharing best practices on early childhood education, or explaining new irrigation techniques to farmers. This team’s focus is sport education and physical literacy for children with the ultimate goal of working with children and introducing them to playing sports that can form the basis of healthy active lives, make good nutritional choices, reduce childhood obesity and gender disparity.
Visiting team leader, Lezlie Murch, shared, “this team has been welcomed with open arms by both the public and Catholic school systems, the coaches and the schools, and the government of St Maarten, but what has struck us is how excited and engaged the children are. They have so much energy and we are touched they have embraced us as family. We hope we have touched their lives as much as they have touched ours.” Team Leader Murch is in the process of establishing on-going relationships with local educators and programmes with a view to collaborating again in the near future.
Two of the five team members are Rotarians. The Team Leader and Rotarian is a former youth exchange student to Bolivia and is the President of a full-time high performance sports facility and private school. She is joined by team members that work in the fields of: mental health education; self-defense and martial arts; career PhysEducation and curriculum development; community recreation department; as well as a member of two Canadian championship teams (basketball and football) that also happens to teach sports by incorporating music with dance and physical activity. The team visiting St Maarten arrived March 10 and will be in Anguilla next week returning to St Maarten at the end of the month.
If you are interested in learning more about Rotary and Rotary’s initiatives contact any of the three Rotary clubs in St Maarten.