My

Story

Hien

“I studied psychological education and after graduation I started working in an SOS Children’s Villages. I grew up in a town close to the SOS Village where I now work. I had a passion for football since I was small and I played football with the other children in my community as well as on a team growing up.

Now, I am an educator in the village. My role is to provide support to the mother in each family when it comes to helping the children to learn and to do their school exercises. I help them to improve any weaknesses they have or if they are struggling with something. Before this education, my duty in the village was to see how the children are doing at school. But after the first module, I had more ideas of how to organise activities and how to get more children involved.

The training has really benefitted me as I always work with children – and there are a lot of them! The kids in the village really love to play football and there is a really big pitch which they can play on. Since the Young Coach Education I have been organising activities every afternoon for the children so they can come together and play. The difference is, that before there would normally just be a big football match with all of them playing. But after this education, I learnt how to properly organise and structure activities and how to include more fun and educational games for them to play and learn. I do this now every day in the village. In addition, especially in the summer, we organise a big match for them. For example, on the 1^st of June, Children’s Day, we organise a big match together with the other children from the community, like from the local school or from around the area.

The thing that has made me most proud during this education programme is that it has helped me be more confident when I do the activities with children. I can now help more children and open the circle so that everyone can play. The exercises on the field should motivate the children to have fun and to most importantly join altogether while learning through playing football. I feel so happy and proud of being a Young Coach. Since I was very small, I always admired my coaches and now I can learn what it takes to be a good coach and role model and that gives me such pride.”