5 Skills You Sharpen When You Coach Abroad
Arriving home after a stint volunteering overseas is a unique experience; you will be filled with mixed emotions. A deep sense of satisfaction may nestle against the dull exhaustion in your bones; your mind may be awash with the wonder of recently experienced sights and sounds, while it struggles to understand how to fit these memories into your worldview. Your heart may be full, even as it wonders - "What next?"
One thing that may not be immediately apparent is the change in your skill level - particularly when you volunteer in the sporting field. You will arrive home with enhanced athletic and non-athletic skills that will help you grow as a person.
Rapport
Making a connection with new people can be difficult at the best of times; but when you coach abroad, you are expected to meet and engage with a whole range of new faces in a very different culture. It can be tough to teach football skills or show children how to use hockey equipment in Ghana or South Africa while you struggle to remember faces and foreign names. But in the end, this exposure will help you develop your rapport skills for when you return home.
Leadership
Leadership skills are a requirement when you volunteer in a programme to coach abroad. Whether young or old, if you go to a school or sporting clinic in Ghana or South Africa there will be moments when you need to take charge and make snap decisions. No matter how limited your exposure to leadership may have been in the past, it is no reason to be daunted. In the end, within the right supportive environment, you will develop a fuller understanding of yourself and your ability to lead others in the right circumstances.
Endurance
People who choose to coach abroad generally love their sport. This needs to be especially true when they are expected to contribute to specialised school programs in netball or hockey in less-developed African towns. Ultimately, most volunteers will find that coaching these children, with their abundance of enthusiasm, will not involve them sitting on the side-lines with a whistle in hand. Volunteers will build their physical strength, health and endurance as they manage their involvement over weeks or even months.
Sport-specific skills
It is obvious that volunteers who coach abroad need to know what they are doing. You do not need to be a professional rugby player or world-class footballer, but you do need to know how pack a scrum and dribble a ball. One of the great, and often unexpected, delights of teaching children sport is that your own sport-specific skills become tested and challenged.
Cultural Sensitivity
The world is a wide and diverse place, and this is one of the draw cards for volunteers who choose to go overseas. But most will experience a degree of culture shock as the strange sights, sounds and customs of Ghana or South Africa hit them with full force and challenge their preconceptions. This will, in turn, allow volunteers to come home with greater cultural awareness.
One thing that may not be immediately apparent is the change in your skill level - particularly when you volunteer in the sporting field. You will arrive home with enhanced athletic and non-athletic skills that will help you grow as a person.
Rapport
Making a connection with new people can be difficult at the best of times; but when you coach abroad, you are expected to meet and engage with a whole range of new faces in a very different culture. It can be tough to teach football skills or show children how to use hockey equipment in Ghana or South Africa while you struggle to remember faces and foreign names. But in the end, this exposure will help you develop your rapport skills for when you return home.
Leadership
Leadership skills are a requirement when you volunteer in a programme to coach abroad. Whether young or old, if you go to a school or sporting clinic in Ghana or South Africa there will be moments when you need to take charge and make snap decisions. No matter how limited your exposure to leadership may have been in the past, it is no reason to be daunted. In the end, within the right supportive environment, you will develop a fuller understanding of yourself and your ability to lead others in the right circumstances.
Endurance
People who choose to coach abroad generally love their sport. This needs to be especially true when they are expected to contribute to specialised school programs in netball or hockey in less-developed African towns. Ultimately, most volunteers will find that coaching these children, with their abundance of enthusiasm, will not involve them sitting on the side-lines with a whistle in hand. Volunteers will build their physical strength, health and endurance as they manage their involvement over weeks or even months.
Sport-specific skills
It is obvious that volunteers who coach abroad need to know what they are doing. You do not need to be a professional rugby player or world-class footballer, but you do need to know how pack a scrum and dribble a ball. One of the great, and often unexpected, delights of teaching children sport is that your own sport-specific skills become tested and challenged.
Cultural Sensitivity
The world is a wide and diverse place, and this is one of the draw cards for volunteers who choose to go overseas. But most will experience a degree of culture shock as the strange sights, sounds and customs of Ghana or South Africa hit them with full force and challenge their preconceptions. This will, in turn, allow volunteers to come home with greater cultural awareness.
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