Coaches Across Continents: Insights from three community impact coaches

These are the words of Song Sarim, a coach from Phnom Penh’s Indochina Starfish Foundation. “We have many new coaches here for the first time.”

Similarly, Sarim is working in Siem Reap as a Community Impact Coach (CIC) for the first time. As the week comes to a close, Sarim feels extremely satisfied with the growth he has witnessed on the field. That shyness he saw on the first day in each of the coaches quickly melted away, and he could feel their energy on the field. He especially noticed this in the female coaches from Globalteer – the group Coaches Across Continents is partnered with this week. Over half of this week’s coaches were female, as Globalteer strives to empower women in the community. “Everyone seemed to be happy all week and I saw many strong, good players.”

The other two CIC’s who joined us this week seemed to agree. For Yim Sovath, this came to life in a game focused on gender equity. Players are instructed to “run like a girl.” What often happens – and surely enough what happened this week – is that all players, boys and girls, start running with their arms up and begin prancing around. It is always funny to see female coaches do this, women who normally run just as fast as the men.

Sovath comments that this game is very important for everyone – not just women. The conversation at the end of the game helps us to realise where these stereotypes of men and women come from and what we can do to change them as coaches. “I also enjoy the game because it is fun; everyone is laughing, and we also learn a lot,” Sovath smiles.

• Visit the Coaches Across Continents website to read the full article