TRT News

TRT India 2011 Tour – Part II

on Nov 13 in Events, India, Media, News, Tour tagged by Martin TRT

After a fantastic and hectic schedule for the first week of the Tour the TRT Team hooked up with the Netball girls and headed for the beach at Puri … where rather than resting they ended up playing Beach Tag ! As usual, a crowd of locals soon gathered, including reporters and cameramen from three local TV staions who had read about the programme in Bhubaneswar and heard we would be playing on the beach at sundown.

It was great to be in the familiar surroundings of Hotel Gandhara and their amazing banana and honey pancakes … the hotel has been through a significant facelift which now includes a swimming pool !

Sunday evening saw us all returning to Bhubaneswar on the local train to get ready for the second phase of coaching – Grade 5 girls, a programme we started a number of years ago and provides a real boost to female sports activities in a country where they have been lacking in the past.

Another first for TRT in India (and as a result of some great success in Africa) was the inclusion of the Bipin Bihari Chowdhury School for the Deaf in our coaching programme. We have had some amazing results working with deaf boys and girls in Uganda, so we were determined to give them the same opportunity in India to participate in a Tag Tournament.

The second week is a shorter programme than the first, but as always, everyone throws themselves into the training schedule and on Wednesday afternoon the 8 teams assembled at first time hosts SAI International School for Tournament day. As usual in the second week in India, all the games were officiated by first time volunteers and Young Leaders from KISS.

With a mix of new and old schools, the pool matches were the usual shake-out of teams into Cup and Bowl competitions … with the Deaf school winning 2 of their 3 matches to qualify for the Cup – a brilliant performance

Winners on the day were the KISS girls in white, playing fantastic, flowing Tag Rugby and making it look very easy. Bowl winners were the team from ODM in their second year participating in the programme.

This all capped a great India 2011 Tour – 1,500 boys and girls coached Tag Rugby, 15 more Young Leaders involved in the coaching and 2 new schools added to the role call in Bhubaneswar.

Also noteworthy is the progress of developments at KISS – a Tribal School now providing schooling and accomodation free to 15,000 children – just look at their assembly !