Camocim's spirit at Inter Campus Brazil

CAMOCIM - After the site inspection a year ago and the inauguration recently, the real work starts now in Brazil.

We've come back to the youngest Inter Campus project after a few months away to have a look at the progress made and assess the impact on the local children.

Upon entering the gym, we were greeted with the same young smiling faces as last same; the kids were full of excitement and ready to train with us again. Arriving on their bikes, with their parents or on the school bus, they entered the gym, remembered our names and wanted to show us how much they've improved.

The thing you notice straight away is the order and discipline, if perhaps not yet perfect, have considerably improved. A few months hard work were all it took to change their respect for rules and each other, showing how important it is at seven or eight years old to use sport to teach these values. The children are happy to be taught and enjoy the process of learning, especially since they're having fun at the same time.

The teachers from the two schools involved were sat on the stands pitchside, happy to see their pupils learning in a hall without desks and chalkboards but football goals and Nerazzurri shirts instead. This was a lesson in motion teaching them to develop and reason by themselves.

Before leaving, we were approached by the head of schools in the region who asked us to expand our work to other institutions, acknowledging the role we have in the children's development. A nice thought and we'll think on it, but for now we'll concentrate on the smiling kids and the community we have here, safe in the knowledge that we're on the right track.