Volume 4 Issue 3
Page 13
Open Fun Football Schools
By: David Fox, MAK 9
Last summer, I was happily enjoying sleeping in.
Well, I was rather annoyed to be awoken by blaring
music at 8 AM one Wednesday morning. Apparently,
someone took our theater sound system to the football field, conveniently across from my apartment,
and started blasting my sweet dreams with Macedonian Turbo Folk. Oh the agony!
here.
I got up, looked out my window, and there stood 200
kids getting ready to play games. The soccer field
had been divided up into 12 sections. Well, I was still
a bit annoyed, so I went down to ask some of my students what was going on. They told me it was a day
camp and that on Monday and Tuesday, they had
been in Negotino. Kids from Negotino and Gradsko
were also present for this event.
Hmm, day camp. Shuttling kids in from other cities for
a cooperative week of skills training in soccer, and
blaring music at 8 AM means I can’t sleep in anyways
for the next few days. So, I put on my “PCV hat” and
introduced myself to the “Glavniot” and asked what
this thing is.
Open Fun Football Schools has been in Macedonia
for 6 years. Every year, they have a football camp for
kids aged 6 to 12. It is sponsored by the Danish government. About 20 camps are funded each year.
The trainers are mostly PE teachers from various
schools around Macedonia. But others include
teachers, directors, pedagogues, and other volunteers who have given their time of the summer to participate in this. OFFS takes place in areas where
there once was conflict—such as the Kosovo Crisis
Ok, I’m not going to get any sleep. They’re not going away. So, if you can’t beat them, join them. I
decided that these kids would like to learn a few
American sports. I took a bunch of Frisbees® out
and the Glavniot graciously gave me a station for a
few rotations of kids where we learned how to toss,
catch, and in some cases were even able to play
Ultimate Frisbee.
I decided that this was a very cool thing, considering
I didn’t have to write a grant proposal for this activity. The sponsors and project are already in place.
I just showed up and enjoyed my time working with
kids, which represented a well balanced, multiethnic group of both boys and girls.
So, this summer I asked if I could participate again,
this time as a formal trainer. This meant I had to
attend a seminar. I was only a day late in calling or
I could have attended a training in Sarajevo. *sigh*,
but everything was covered, so I basically spent 3
days in Kruševo training volunteers from Serbia,
Bulgaria, Croatia, and Kosovo.