I wanted to share with you some great progress we’re making with the children from ZL4LF and our BORA Project (Budo for a reason) based at the International School in Zanzibar (ISZ). The children are practicing regularly and we’re very happy with their achievement.

We’ve had a very productive meeting with Director of Primary Education at the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training of Zanzibar. I outlined our vision of the BORA Project’s objectives, the philosophy and ethics behind it and our current activities. This was received with much interest and appreciation. Sofia (the Director of Primary Education at the Ministry) is very enthusiastic and wants to give BORA her full support and is very open to further discussions. She said that community outreach by ISZ is very much appreciated and this is what they have always been looking for. The Government of Zanzibar is keen to develop physical activities in the island’s government schools. The President of Zanzibar reiterated this very clearly on their last meeting.

In the context of the growing importance of physical education, our intention to provide more opportunities and improved access matches that of the government. We’ve started to build capability amongst local martial art instructors by our project (through BORA’s direct work with them) and sending them to some very remote schools and significantly increasing project’s penetration. Today the Director of Primary Education and the Director of the Sport and Culture visited ISZ and learnt more about what we do with the children from ZL4LF.

Apart from that we had a Martial Arts demonstration at the ISZ annual Craft Fare which was a great success! Please see the pertinent FB post about that here:

https://www.facebook.com/BORABudoforareason/posts/283668165489006

We’ve also been actively engaged in Aikido Seminars for our instructors as a capacity building component of our Project:

https://www.facebook.com/BORABudoforareason/posts/283674492155040