The programme has now been delivered for 4 years. In 2017, travelling with the mini tennis net, introducing the sport and training the community leaders and 2018-2020 with the community leaders delivering independently. Albeit, with the last year being slightly disrupted.
With the year of the pandemic, our own travels have not been able to happen (due to head to Nicaragua and the Philippines), but play has continued. We have continued to receive images and updates from our communities, with children playing and finding refuge in the naturally social-distanced game. Where possible with local restrictions, it’s been great to see the community leaders continuing to deliver the children’s tennis.
Bolivia continuing their tennis lessons with their community leaders
We were incredibly humbled to hear that the International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced last week that they are endoring the Lawn Tennis Association’s (LTA) Tennis for Kids programme, a starter tennis product that we were involved in writing the content for and have been delivering the lesson plans as part of MTWT. This means that the ITF will be delivering this across their Junior Tennis Initiative worldwide, a 14-and-under junior development programme to over 130 nations, delivered using a network of national coordinators. The proof of concept the MTWT has shown through the format of training and delivery we are happy to see adopted on this mass scale and to make an even larger impact.
Lastly, we are excited to say that the MTWT communities have been collecting impact data on the children’s progress over the past three years. This has been achieved through tracking their levels of health, confidence, education and inclusion, before and after their engagement in the programme. We’re waiting for these results to come back to us early next year and to be able to reveal this to you by mid 2021. Watch this space!