Coaching in Romania
David Brain
Some photos: 
Some of you may know that I’m a member of one or two canoeing organisations, one of which is called ‘Mainstream – The Association of Christians in Canoeing.’ Their current chairman, Rob Bianchi, is a Church of England Vicar who, rather unusually, holds Level 5 Coach (Sea) and Level 4 (Inland) qualifications He has been instrumental in forming Overseas Development Ministries (ODM), an organisation working in outdoor projects in developing countries. I’ve paddled with Rob on a number of occasions, and earlier this year he invited me to help out at one of their projects in Romania.
ODM believe they have a calling to help set-up centres of excellence where people can be trained to offer outdoor activities. Their vision is that these people will be instrumental in setting-up camps for young people in their own countries where a sense of community and community values will be encouraged through outdoor activities. They are committed to using all donated funds directly ‘in country.’ These funds are not used for administration, visits by coaches or expenses in the UK. Members of Bristol Canoe Club, amongst other organisations, were generous enough to sponsor my travelling expenses.
We worked from a small timber-built outdoor centre on a large lake about 20Km North of Constanza, Romania’s 2nd city, on the Black Sea. For coaching the lake was ideal, with extensive reed-beds which provided sheltered teaching / practice areas, regardless of wind direction. Its shallow depth meant that the water retained heat from the sun, and it was like canoeing in bath water. Only the odd leach and water snake detracted from the experience!
30 young people, most of them between 18 and 20, arrived from all over Romania. As the Romanian education system still includes a high degree of learning ‘by rote’, attention spans and the ability to concentrate appeared to be much higher than many Brits! This made coaching relatively easy. The Romanians also have a traditional bent for engineering, which means that they learn practical skills quite easily. Show them something once, and they pick it up very quickly.
As well as kayaking and open boating, windsurfing, archery, mountain biking and water safety / lifesaving were all on offer. Every participant got a chance to ‘taste’ every activity, but received more intense coaching in the activities which they would have a chance to provide at their own centres.
The Romanians tend to be a bit ‘gung ho’ about most outdoor activities (it was hard work getting them to wear a buoyancy aid at first) The focus of our coaching, therefore, was mainly on building safety awareness. This focussed on appropriate kit, checking equipment, effective group leadership on open water, dealing with emergency incidents and rescue techniques. By the end of the week they had got the message, which does demonstrate that a fusion of different national mind-sets can be achieved
The Romanians co-ordinating the project at their end continually thanked the Brits for their ‘sacrifice’ in coming to Romania to coach. Sitting on a lake in the sun for 6 hours a day didn’t feel like much of a sacrifice, although we did spend a lot of time in the evenings ‘burning’ CDs containing aid-memoirs for the coaching we’d done during the day. The heart-felt gratitude of those we were teaching was a humbling, but rewarding experience.
To those of you who sponsored me, thank you for your generosity. It will empower many young people, who otherwise would not have had the chance to learn an enjoyable new skill, which they can pass on to others. Thanks also to ‘Young Bristol’, who gave me one or two opportunities to get my coaching ‘head’ back on, before the trip, and to North Avon Canoe Club for the opportunity to coach some of the Canoe Safety Test Skills that proved to be so useful.
If anyone has old but serviceable boats or equipment they feel able to donate to these projects, please let me know.
David Brain – 26th June 2003