South Nottingham College’s Sport Gambia project won a silver medal award at the British Council Awards for Innovative International Collaboration at the Podium Awards which took place on 3rd May. The Podium Awards are a prestigious one-off celebration recognising the vital role colleges and universities across the UK have played in delivering the London 2012 Games.

The College’s Sport Gambia project saw ten students travel to the Gambia in March 2012 as a reward for their fundraising efforts during the year. The students have all been involved in a range of sport volunteer activities and have excelled in volunteering whilst studying on their course. They each had to raise £550 to cover their flight and accommodation costs.

The BTEC Sport Development and Fitness students also undertook additional volunteering in the Gambia visiting five schools and putting on sport and physical activity sessions for nearly 400 primary and secondary schoolchildren with one of the schools being for deaf and blind children. The pupils really engaged with SNC students as PE is very limited with the Gambian curriculum. The students also distributed donated sport kits from Forest, Notts FA and tennis balls from the LTA.

Diane Garfield, Community and Performance Sport Manager said: “This was an amazing opportunity for College students to learn more about other countries and cultures whilst delivering sport and physical activity to local people. The students had an immeasurable, life- changing experience seeing such extreme poverty, poor school conditions and how the children learn.”

South Nottingham College already has strong links with the Gambia. In 2008 the College was instrumental in setting up a tourism school running courses to help the country promote its own tourism industry. There have been discussions about extending the current project to include sport delivery into schools.

Story: Courtesy of South Nottingham College