01-09-2023
Back in Portugal after a fortnight in Benin, Pedro Gonçalves, coach of Sport Alenquer e Benfica's senior roller hockey team, and Ricardo Lopes, roller hockey player, were in Cotonou on a voluntary basis, where they gave training to coaches and players from the community. It was an experience that, according to both of them, marked them on a personal and professional level.
It was the first time that the coach of the Alenquerque team was challenged to be part of a project of this scale, an invitation he accepted immediately. "It's an experience that makes you put your whole life into perspective, especially what's around you. I think it's a fantastic experience for us as human beings, to deal with a reality so different from our own, not only in Benin, but also in other African countries," emphasised Pedro Gonçalves.
Pedro Gonçalves' assessment of the initiative is positive in several respects. As well as being a unique personal experience, the coach is happy with the results the players have achieved at the end of the two weeks. Motivated by the progress of the training sessions, Pedro Gonçalves believes the project has the potential to grow and says he is willing to help the Cotonou community from afar. "Then there was the question of the sporting component, the technical part, and I think that in a fortnight we managed to achieve some very good qualitative objectives. The children have clearly evolved," he said.
During the conversation, the coach shared with the Nova Verdade newspaper some episodes that have marked him throughout the project. "There have been things we've experienced, seen and felt that aren't easy. You have to have a stomach. I'd be lying if I didn't say that both Ricardo and I had several moments when it was hard to keep our emotions in check, even after we got back," emphasises Pedro Gonçalves, assuming that the trip didn't only bring good things. In fact, over the course of the training days, the coach recounted several moments that left a deep impression on him.
"We had a training session that started at three in the afternoon, on one of the hottest days. We realised that one kid had malaria and hadn't eaten anything that day. He was there ready to train and we obviously didn't allow that to happen," he said. As we all know, the African continent has problems with basic sanitation, hunger, poor conditions in education, sport and other fields. That's what the volunteers had to deal with on a daily basis: "My pupils didn't know that the sea was blue, the sea there is brown, for various geological reasons and also because of pollution. There's the fact that we go to the poorest areas and see that some of those families sleep in houses with mud, dust, dirt, rats and no sanitation. There is very little food. A large part of the population doesn't have access to drinking water," Pedro Gonçalves said with anguish.
The coach did not fail to add another episode that illustrated the team spirit and sportsmanship within the community. "At one of the training sessions, some of the students turned up wearing trainers, which made the coach uneasy. We explained to the coaches that we can't accept distinctions between those who can and can't afford jewellery. I think it loses the beauty of the sport. So the kids were called up and asked if they wanted to be the same or if they wanted to be different from the others. "In a second, they took off their jewellery and went skating. And that's a highly relevant problem, because we're talking about a hot concrete floor and skin quickly gets abraded."
"The project is not over..."
"... on the contrary, it has only just begun". Initially, the initiative was scheduled to last a fortnight. However, the targets were exceeded and the project won more financial donations. Pedro Gonçalves, in an interview with Rádio Voz de Alenquer in the early days of the project, said that financial support was insufficient to transport equipment from Portugal to Africa and that he therefore had to invest out of his own pocket. "It was during the time we were there that we got closer to the people. We received feedback from a lot of people, not only from the hockey community, but also from other countries and other communities. And so, in that respect, it was very interesting to realise the warmth that can be generated around an initiative like this," said the coach, assuming that more financial support was forthcoming from that moment on.
Pedro Gonçalves concluded that the focus is on continuing to find financial support to send material to the Benin community. "In the future, we have to continue to find an economical, practical and simple way to send material there, because the truth is that we still have a lot of accumulated material."
Hockey for Benin is a project that was born out of a conversation, but which could quickly become a "serious, structured project that, in the long term, could do wonders for this community". do wonders for this community".