Dorleh Nevado Football Academy

Soma Town

Jaara West District

Lower River Region

The Gambia

West Africa

3rd January 2008

To BK Valloe

Dear Sir

Letter of Congratulation

The Executive Committee of the above named football academy including the players of all categories wishes to thank you for the wonderful effort you have made for us.

We would like to tell you that we are very much pleased with you and want to say a big thank you.

Our appreciation cannot be over emphasized in this letter but just to say a big thank you.

It really gladdens the heart of everybody within the community to see a donation like this coming from your club. The availability of these football kits is very important to us since it encourages and improves development of football in the country.

Again to say thank you and thank you hundred times more. We also pray for your clubs long life and success in all its deeds.

Besides, we should be ungrateful if we should request anything from you again but we would like you to put us in mind in case you should want to make assistant of this kind in the future

Thank you.

Coach Ensa Darboe

Further donations from Danish football clubs.

The Danish citizen, Allan Nevado, visited Soma during the last week of the school holiday to hand out another donation of football equipment to a Soma based academy.

Thursday 3^rd January was the day that the newly founded Soma based academy received a donation of football kits and balls from two Danish football clubs. Allan Nevado, a representative of the clubs was present at the presentation that took place at Kairakonko in Soma and was participated by players, coaches and the adviser of the academy, representatives of the regional scouts head quarter of Soma and St. Georgs Guilds who made the donation possible.

Receiving the items overwhelmed the coach Ensa ‘Mourinho’ Darboe, who stated that they could not have arrived at a better time than this. “This is all achieved due to hard work,” he explained and thanked the donor for the generosity. “These things will go in a long way for us to help developing football in the region, “ he continued before giving the floor to Allan ‘Dorleh’ Nevado, who stated that seriousness regarding training and the respect of the coaches who all work hard is important for the players development: “These coaches work for free because they have a passion for the game and they wish to see you go far,” he told the players, “we have worked hard to make this donation possible. Other academies have asked for kits but were left out since they were not serious. I hope that you will make good use of the equipment” he ended.

Fafanding Suno representing the St. Georgs Guilds explained how the organisation works to help development in the country. “The Danish people are already doing a lot to help both hospitals and scouts in the Gambia and due to their consistently effort for the Gambia they have now helped Mr. Dorleh to bring in equipment for academies” The secretary of the academy, Lamin Sanneh, also gave his appreciation of the donated materials for the academy before Demba Three Ceesay, the Alkalo of Soma New Town, finished the speeches by stating that it is important that the materials are put into best use. “I can not play due to my age, but the love for the game made me spend the little I had to help the development of football in the region,” he revealed and continued: “There for it gladdens my heart to see donations like this.” The Alkalo were the first in Soma to believe in football and there for he dedicated his time to encourage the children of the town to play. Today these children are the coaches of the academy and his own grandchildren are benefiting from the project he started. The ceremony ended with a game between the academy players and a chosen team of consisting of coaches scout members and the donor Mr. Dorleh. Despite several attempts by the coaches and 3 great scoring opportunities to the donor, the well disciplined defence of the academy kept the ball out of the net and the game ended with a late goal victory for the academy team.The academy has already achieved great success within its first year in progress. In May they reached the final of the Giant Trophy Competition for intermediates in the district and the 70 players of 3 age groups will in the future be known as the Dorleh Nevado Football Academy it was later revealed. A great gesture to the donor from the academy founded in March 2007. DNFA will in the coming month get registered at GFA level and hopefully the development of football will continue in the region with the help of future donations. The Danish clubs have already donated equipment to 3 academies in The Gambia and Allan Nevado has promised that he will do his best to link Gambian academies with Danish clubs and also try to bring in more equipment in the future. Finally the donor would like to thank the president and government of The Gambia for making these donations possible and for their efforts and progress to develop the country.

Friday, August 25th 2007

Article at Daily Express

Gilkock – A go at Danish soccer drills

Allan Nevado, student of the university of Ballerup Seminariet currently in The Gambia on attachment spent two weekend days at the Gilkock Football Academy.

            Allan an undergraduate at the Department of Youth, Sports and Games at the university but in deep love with the game of football wasted no time in responding to the call of the academy for technical tutorial session.

            Allan confessed that the standard of the interns at the Brufut based academy is higher compared those of their peer in Denmark but was also quick to add that the interns need to learn to work as a team, one of his sessions centred on team work. He noted that it is important for players of a young age to be taught how to accept their teammates and always learn to say thank you, keep it up or try hard next time.

            After the practical session on Sunday, Allan went into a lecture session with the interns of the Academy; it got described as educative and interactive.

            Max Jallow whom facilitated Allan’s’ visit to the academy thanked the coaches and players for their perseverance and quickly advised the players on the need for commitment to the game,stating that they respect their coaches and fellow players and finally the need to maintain discipline at all time.

            Sang Mendy, public relation officer, thanked Allan for coming to their aid, he then appealed on Allan to always find time to visit when opportune outside his tight academic schedules, Mr. Buba K. Jallow and Alieu Sanneh, Technical Director and Coach respectively formed part of the two days session.

August 29^th 2007

A weekend in Brufut

There are no words to describe the feelings that I’m dealing with after returning from Brufut. After using several weeks of talking, at different offices, it was quite a relief finally to be able to use my knowledge.

I left Bundung early Saturday morning to board the small ‘busses’ going from town to town. It was very important for me to arrive before 9 o’clock since all traffic in the Gambia stops at this time. It is the national cleaning day and no traffic is allowed on the streets and no work, besides from cleaning is allowed between 9am and 1pm. It was a horrible trip. The best word to describe the activity around the car parks is: War. Everyone fought an intense battle to join the small busses that were leaving Serekunda. I was lucky. Some of the Gambians helped me to get a seat, which provoked some of the other passengers. They were screaming, shouting and complaining for almost 15 minutes before peace settled in the wagon. The driver told me he was going to Brufut but I was kicked out of the car halfway. It wasn’t going to Brufut it was heading for Tanji. There I was stranded at a junction in the middle of nowhere, not knowing what to do. After consulting Mr. Jallow on the phone, telling me to stay and wait for a car going in the right direction, I decided to start walking. I knew that the trip to Brufut would be very long, several kilometres, but since it was very close to 9am, I wouldn’t risk getting stranded in no-mans-land. I started walking and once again I was lucky. After a few minutes a ‘bus’ going to my final destination picked me up. The driver though, was pretty rude to me and the passengers kept laughing at me for no particular reason. I was very angry with them since that kind of behaviour is very uncommon here. But I wanted to go to Brufut so I did my best to ignore them.

When arriving in Brufut Max picked me up. We walked to the nearby field, where I was introduced to the voluntary coaches of the Gilcock Football Academy (Please visit their homepage for further information regarding this weekend: www.gilkock.com . There should be pictures too). They had expected me to start training them right away but I emphasized that it was important for me to see how they were working normally to be able to gain enough knowledge to set up a specific program for them. I therefore used the Saturday observing the players, the coaches, the interactions between coaches to players and player to player. Made some notes and came up with ideas for the Sunday session. Honestly I must say that I was very impressed with the players’ technical skills. It was clear to me that they were way ahead of the Danish boys and girls at the same age. Therefore I decided to use my time at the academy dealing with the most important thing in football, seen from my perspective: Teamwork. It’s essential to work together as a team since it’s impossible to succeed in this game alone as an individual. A team that is working perfectly together can be very hard to defeat even though their technical skills might not be the best.

At the end of the training session I informed the boys and girls about what was going to happen at the Sunday session and made it clear to them that they had to be there on time, since late in the Gambia isn’t 5 minutes, rather 30 minutes or more.

Max and I strolled to his family compound where I spend the evening preparing for the Sunday session. I had to do a lot of thinking and reading. Though I had my mind set on the issues that I wanted to address and train it wasn’t easy to put it on paper, since the conditions were quite different from those I’m used to in Denmark. Normally I coach around 16 boys, using 16 balls; today I coached 2 shifts of approximately 60 boys and girls each using 10 balls. It’s clear that changes from my normal training sessions had to be done and that process is very giving.

I arrived at the field 10 to 9am Sunday morning. It was a nice morning. The sun wasn’t to hot, which I appreciated since I had had some problems dealing with the heat during the Saturday training session. The first shift was the girls and the small boys and I started the day introducing my objectives of the day and informed the players that this session would be very different from what they were used to.

I started the program using an activity slightly inspirited by my former teacher-tutor Annette Øberg, designed to increase the ability of the children to concentrate. It was important that the children kept focused during the day, since this is one of the major problems on the fields in the country.

We started warming up using the fundament of the previous activity and continued by playing some games used to increase the children’s awareness of team spirit, friendship, and interdependence. I wanted the children to be able to motivate each other and by these means increasing their confidence and self-esteem. It was important that the children began to recognize each other, realising that each individual was a part of the group. The team.

I ended the training-session training some basic skills. Such as break and pass just to let the children feel that they did touch the ball today. The strange games had something to do with football it was not just a day of games.

The small boys ended the day by joining the big boys in a 45min lecture, given by me, dealing with the values earlier mentioned. I based my lecture on the football project I designed at my former place of work; Pyramiden After School Centre inspired by the Danish educational documentary: “Pas Paa Nerverne” (Calm Your Nerves). It’s a project specially designed to teach the children aspects of responsibility, role modelling, fair-play, respect, co-operation, recognition of each other, positive communication etc. through football training sessions. The children participated in a constructive matter and it was a pleasure to be able to give them some knowledge. Some of the big boys didn’t have the motivation and turned up very late. The only thing I could do was to make them apologize for their lack of respect to the team and for wasting our time and then send them home. I wanted to clarify that respecting each other develops team spirit and turning up late for a training session is a clear sign of disrespect.

After the lecture it was time for the big boys to go through my programme. It was slightly different from the programme due to the age difference. I was worried that they wouldn’t respect my knowledge and programme since some of the boys were around 17 years old, but I faced no problems at all. It was a real pleasure coaching them and they seemed to enjoy the games. I began by ordering them outside the field. They had to walk around the field until they reached the back of one of the goals. They were not allowed to enter the field in any other way than climbing over the goal. I wanted the coaches of the academy to see how their boys would work together. I told them that the only way they could join the training session was by climbing the goal. Those who didn’t succeed would be send home. They were not allowed to use the posts so they had to use teamwork. After 10 minutes of struggle most of the boys had succeeded but there were still 4 left. After giving them another speak about teamwork/spirit I told them to do it again, since this was a team assignment and they had to get everyone across the bar. They then started to work together as a team and all players had entered the pitch within 5 minutes.  We then continued playing some of the games that the small boys also did and I soon realized that the boys had a hard time expressing them self’s. I chose to stop the training session and paired the boys. I then forced them to sit 2 and 2 together using ½ minute each to tell the other person all the positive things that they appreciated from the other. It was a strange but giving experience for them. We then continued playing the games and ended the session playing some six-a-side rotational football, based on man marking and fast passing. Again just to let them feel that they had had the opportunity to play some ball.

It was a fantastic weekend and I really appreciated that the family of Mr. Max Jallow opened their doors, letting me stay at their family compound.

Sunday evening I returned to Bundung and was alone for 20 minutes. Then the neighbours and the girls from the neighbouring compounds entered my apartment and stayed there until midnight. That’s is something that I’m starting to get used too. It’s very different from the Danish traditions to have the neighbours visiting every night, but it’s cosy and I’m (almost) never bored.

After visiting Brufut I’ve started attending teacher-trainee classes at St. Therese’s  (The school where I will start teaching from September. Some of the lessons are absolutely useless to me but some are very giving.

Yesterday, when I was on my way home from classes I met two immigration officers at Serekunda Market. They wanted me to show them my documents. Since I don’t want to carry my passport of safety reasons, I showed them my Gambian Alien ID, which I’ve got made especially to be able to walk the streets not worrying about keeping an eye on my pockets. But that were not enough for them. They wanted me to have a citizen permit or something like that and threaten that they would arrest me. Luckily I had the numbers to some of my contacts at the Department of Youth and sports. I called Mr. Abdoulie Kah and he convinced them that I worked for the government and that they should let me go without paying for these expensive documents. Then they released me on condition that I should go home directly, get my passport and immediately return to the Serekunda Police Station. I went home and returned to the station carrying my passport and 50 Dalasis only. I wanted to avoid the possibility of them seeing that I had money, which would have extended the process even more. It was very clear to me that they wanted money and from the time they caught me at the Market till I was released from the station two hours of my valuable time was wasted.

I was expecting a guest the same evening and the officers had now ruined the possibility of having dinner ready at her arrival. I didn’t even get lunch.

Today I experienced that I had entered the columns of the Daily express. I bought three copies and in the coming days I will send a copy to my school and off course there will be a copy for my family at home.

I will post the article at the homepage later

Regards

Allan

August 5th, 2007

Where to
begin? I do so many different things, that it’s pretty hard for me putting it
on paper.

First of I
haven’t started working yet. Pa-Omar told me that I should go with him to see
the minister of sports and youth last Tuesday, but I haven’t heard a word from
him. I’ve tried calling him everyday for more than a week and it’s absolutely
impossible to get in touch with him. As far as I know he’s staying at a scout
camp near Sanyang (SW, Gambia)
but every time I call Ousman, the deputy secretary of the scout organisation,
he’s unable to give me new information. The information I need regards my
accommodation and the voluntary work that I’m supposed to do. Pa-Omar told me
that I could start working before the end of this week. Today it’s Sunday and
I’m still unemployed. I have to leave the family, where I live, since a
grandfather is sick and needs to be accommodated. He’s arriving tomorrow from a
small village in Senegal
and has to go to a hospital to be checked. They don’t know whether it’s TB or
cancer, so it might take a while. Meanwhile I’m supposed to stay somewhere
else, since the family won’t take the risk of having me and the small children
exposed to potentially harmful germs. Pa-Omar promised to find a place for me,
but as earlier mentioned, I still haven’t heard anything.

These days
I’m enjoying long walks around the neighbourhood. I’m doing my best to be
familiar with every street and every corner. I’m talking to a lot of different
people while strolling and find it amazing how the locals care. Sometimes they
care, to make their daily living but most of the Gambians just love to small
talk. I’ve started to draw a map of the area. No maps exist so this might be
the first map of Inner Serekunda. I’m walking, drawing and gets familiar with
an even greater area everyday and love it. Yesterday I walked to Westerfield
(30min.) and crossed the huge Serekunda market on the way back. I chose the
small and narrow alleys, where smoked fish, meat and vegetables are sold to
feed the population of the biggest town in The Gambia.

It’s nice
to be the only white boy in the crowed. I’m trying in every possible way not to
act like the normal tourist. I want to be as ‘local’ as possible and live the
‘local’ life, but it’s not easy since many Gambians believe that white skin
means pockets full of money.

I was
fixing Haddy’s toilet door the other day, using a chisel and a hammer. Then
this man popped up and insisted to help. I tried in everyway possible to tell
him that I wanted to do the work myself, but he wouldn’t listen. Then after
working for 10minuttes he suddenly ask me whether I will give him the tools he
was using. He told me that he needed them and that I could go and buy a new set
for myself. No way. Then Haddy kicked him out and I finished the job.

I have
mended the road to. Not the way I wanted to do it, but things are very
complicated in The Gambia so halfway solutions are often used as a compromise,
to avoid offending someone. Instead of building a concrete ditch in one side of
the road, where the water could run they just ad sand to the eroded streets and
this sand will then be washed away within a month or two. Then they might ad
some extra sand or gravel or they’ll give up. Some streets have sunken more
than 50 centimetres and are only passable by foot.

We only
have electricity when the family has got money for fuel to the generator. When
that happens Nigerian movies are rented and the whole family sticks together
for a cosy time in the living room. That’s when I flee. Nigerian are often
horrible movies. The acting is often poor and the stories pretty boring too.
There are some movies that have so many mistakes that you can’t stop yourself
from laughing. Yesterday we saw this movie that took place in a convent in the
Nigerian countryside, but every time the movie had indoor scenes, the hectic
noise of the city of Lagos
was to be heard in the background.

Normally I
use the movie hours to read and write about my daily living and doing.
Isolating myself to rest and have some privacy for once in a while.

I live in a
family with 7 individuals + guests and the family always has at least one guest
besides me, so privacy is rare.

I have
started learning how to drive. Taf and I have found some nice small football
fields, where I practice different driving skills getting started, gear
shifting and such. I even drove on tar road the other day. Soon we will buy a
learners licence and then I’ll be able to drive around and practice even more.

I will have
to leave you since I’m out off battery.

See ya

Allan

The leading article in the daily observer August 2nd 2007

Bravo President Jammeh

The recent discharge of 35 former HIV/Aids
patents, who were fully cured by President Yahya Jammeh, after undergoing his
herbal treatment is a feat for which the President should be congratulated, as
well as for his untiring effort in the treatment of various diseases.

This Breakthrough has again proved to be the
whole world that there is no disease that cannot be cured. The landmark achievement,
which heralds a new epoch in the medical sciences, and has been repeatedly
attested to by the cured patients, medical practitioners and academics,
vindicates the Gambian leader, and places him in the annals of world history as
one of the greatest men who ever lived. Like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Bell
and many other illustrious people who have contributed to the development and
progress of the world, President Jammeh has given to humanity, a gift for which
he shall be remembered by generations to come. Indeed, if there was any justice
in the world, the President would have been handed the Nobel Peace prize on a
silver platter. His achievement surely eclipses that of those mentioned above
and of many others who have been given this prize. Consequently, we ask: why
the hypocrisy?

It is a common fact that there are some
diseases that cannot be cured by scientists or medical doctors. Even in cases
where they can be treated, there is no reason why we should refrain from
seeking herbal treatment or concoctions, as they are just as good if not
better. It is a fact, for instance, that malaria can be treated with modern
drugs but many still use local herbs to treat it, one main advantage of the
latter being the relatively low risk of side effects. Therefore, the
President’s wise move to cure HIV/Aids by using herbal means is a laudable
thing and one for which he certainly deserves all the commendations we can give
him.

We are all aware that President Jammeh’s
resolve to save humanity has attracted swelling diatribe in some international
media outlets and from some “so-called” HIV/Aids experts. However, we should
critically examine the motive of such people and establishments, so that we can
better understand the reasons behind their sinister machinations. We are all
aware of the fact that many in the west are worried, simply because of the
threat the cure poses to numerous multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical
industries around the world. The President’s treatment shows that he has
regards not only for Gambians but for the world at large. There is very little
doubt that he will go all the way out to make Gambia a better place.

The Gambia has a leader who has proven
to the world that there is no disease that is in curable, a fact we can all
attest to. He did not stop at just curing HIV/Aids but also asthma, and
diabetes among others. Thus, we heartily say to him: Bravo, Mr. President.

So...

The first week in the Gambia has past by in no time.
Most of my time I've used settling. A lot of boring stuff, like opening a bankaccount, trying to get a postbox and getting in touch with the different people that I'm dependent on while staying.

Today I visited the Catholic Education Center in Kanifing, near Westfield and meet my mentor for the comming 6 month, where I'll be teaching the 1st grade.

I'm really looking forward to start teaching these children, but I also know that it won't be an easy job.

First of all we will be have some difficulties ragarding the language. My english is getting better everyday and the words seems to come easier to me know.
The problem is the Wollof-language.
It's not easy at all, but I'm doing my best to learn as much as possible before September 24th, which is my first day at work at the school.
Right now I'm only speaking the basic sentences. How are you? Godmorning/night, I want to go to and such, but it's nice to be challenged and wollof is challenging.

The internetcafe that I'm using now is extremely slow. I'm using one of the newest computers, but I still have to wait minuttes to open a simple page like google.

Hopefully I'll be back on the net soon, I have some banking to do, but I belive it'll take hours to be done on these type of computers.

I'll keep in touch

see ya

Allan