Schools in South Africa will in many instances be the main educator in a child’s life.

Teachers and coaches therefore play a very important role in the development of South African children. With this huge responsibility carried by sports coaches and teachers, the need for the development of these important influencers have been identified.

The Play 4 Life programme was established to address the need for coaches and teachers to develop, in order for them to offer well integrated life guidance, coaching and sport management at schools.

The Play 4 Life Programme is a multi-facetted sport leadership development initiative. School sport stakeholders, including headmasters, teachers, coaches, and volunteers are engaged in an ongoing leadership and coaching programme aimed to develop the quality of school sport.

The Play 4 Life programme is focused on assisting underserved schools to develop competitive sports teams and offers an intensive leadership development component, as well as the provision of sport resources.

Sport is key to the wholistic development of children, but reality is that schools are not equipped with the skills and support to enable a positive sporting environment for children.

Our aim is to change this reality and work towards equal sporting opportunities for all South African children.

The overall objective of the programme is to develop a comprehensive leadership support and development programme for school principals, sport coaches, teachers, and volunteers.

Self-Assessment: Own personal assessment related to values and character.

• This is then addressed by 10 weeks follow-up sessions called “Power Up” sessions.
• Personal one-on-one sessions with School Principal or professional service provider is done, as per need.
• Each coach encouraged to identify own accountability partner and outline actions to engage.

Why Children Play: What does sport mean to children and how can sport impact their life?

Coaching tools: Training drills per individual sport and training manuals for each sport.

• How to incorporate hygiene related to Covid19 in team sport and general conduct and how to promote and teach Fair Play and acceptable conduct from coaches, children and spectators.

 Step Up to a Better Me: Discuss the 7 Dimension of Wellness and discuss and evaluate the School values and Sport team values.

• Character specific training relates to relationships, domestic abuse, substance abuse, conflict triggers, substance abuse, stress management, coping skills, communication and self-care related to Covid19.

Play for Life Support Programme: Once the initial phases are completed, an integrated and ongoing support programme will commence. This will include “power up” sessions, continuous evaluation of state of balls, WhatsApp groups and “Captains and Coaches” event.

Sport equipment distribution: In this phase, a needs assessment is done of sports equipment required by each school. Every school has individual needs, and our aim is to provide sport resources to support the newly established drive towards sport development in each of the participating schools, as identified.

The objectives of this phase are to firstly ensure that quality equipment is available for use in the school, and secondly, to ensure that the equipment is well managed and used.