Trainee journalist reflects on last year's East Africa Cup

Martin Kamande, who worked for a Kenyan radio station at the time, used the training he received as part of the tournament to write the report shown below:

"The youth tournament, held on the plains under snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro attracted 64 football teams and 5 culture teams from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. More than 1,300 youths aged between 13-16 enjoyed a unique experience in sports and learning.

During the tournament, every participant attended seminars where they learned about a range of different topics from conflict resolution to rules of the game, sports medicine and basic first aid to leadership, networking, and health issues like HIV and AIDS awareness.

[The workshop for the journalists] dealt mainly with telling sports stories in a simple, direct and entertaining way. For me personally, it sharpened my skills in football commentary and was especially useful now that I am doing World Cup commentaries in my native language Kikuyu.

The journalists' workshop also incorporated organisational leaders who were learning how to work with the media to promote the mission and vision of their development and charity organisations.A gender balanceOne of [last] year's goals, to have an equal representation of both boys and girls teams, was not quite met, but it was very nearly achieved with 55% boys and 45% girls.

It was especially good to see female referees as young as 16 in charge of matches, as was the case of Jane Wambui, the referee to 17 matches.

To some young lads like Joshua Kimemia of Mysa Mwiki, a Mathare Youth Sport Association team, based in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, Kenya, it was a chance to interact with children from other countries during the evening cultural activities aimed at entertaining and offering a platform for exchanging ideas".

This year's East Africa Cup will be held from 20 June to 26 June 2011, and it is expected that over 1,500 people will take part this time round.