DUKE OF EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL AWARDS PROJECT MANAGER IMPRESSED.

The Duke of Edinburgh International Awards is a non-formal education learning program that helps young people between ages of 14 and 24 develop soft skills such as resilience teamwork confidence and leadership skills.

On Friday May 5th 2023, the D-of-E International awards project manager, Violet Mbwili Mwape visited kabwata play park Hub-Site as part of their quality assurance and to monitor participants progress and challenges so as to determine how best they can be assisted.

Mrs. Mwape was amazed and expressed satisfaction by the progress the participants showed stating that the visit was fruitful for it pointed out an assorted number of activities the kids are learning.

“It is quite amazing to see the activities the participants of the programe are doing and to witness some taking up voluntary services such as cleaning the facilities they use for their physical recreation.”

She went on to say that seeing the kids participating is progressive and she was very impressed.

Chimwemwe Malokota, a gold alumini of the D-of-E international awards shared her journey through the programe expressing that it was an exciting experience even though unforseen global factors prolonged her completion of the program.

“It took quite a while to complete all the levels about 3 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the expeditions.”

She further stated that it was a memorable experience and expressed that she loved working with different people and teams while learning valuable skill such as first Aid, camp-craft and campus work.

Chimwemwe admitted that through the awards training, she learnt how to be self-reliant, innovative and self-fending, she concluded by offering some words of encouragement to current participants and those who might be interested in joing the awards program through Sport in Action Hub-Sites saying that it is a life-changing experience that equips one with life-skills which may not be taught anywhere else.

Freddy Nyendwa, a 14 year old kabwata Hub-Site member and participant of the D-of-E awards explained that the program is going on well for him and that it is helping him learn interaction and leadership skills which he puts into practice at the hub-site through teaching kids how to play basketball.

“The Program has helped me learn how to interact with little kids through helping them learn how to play basketball,” he said.

And National Hub-Site coordinator, Monica Chidila who was also present at the site during the visitation highlighted the partnership between Sport in Action and the Duke of Edinburgh awards program, she narrated that the partnership started in January 2023 and on 27 January, they had the awards leaders training where they trained a total number of ten officers from sport in action to be award leaders and managed to affiliate three award centres (hub-sites) namely, Kabwata, Kaunda Square and Matero.

“The program in the centres began in March and each centre comprises of 15 participants with two award leaders to monitor them,” she explained.