::Article about my visit to New Central School::

Olympic champion teaches kids about Right to Play

By Herb Garbutt, Oakville Beaver

Olympic champion teaches kids about Right to Play. LET’S PLAY: Olympic champion kayaker Adam van Koeverden directs New Central Public School students through a game of elephant ball Monday at the school. Van Koeverden visited New Central to tell students about Right to Play, an organization that creates social change in communities affected by war and poverty through games and sport. NIKKI WESLEY / Oakville Beaver

Adam van Koeverden could easily be spending the afternoon demonstrating to the students of New Central Public School how he powers a kayak through the water faster than just about anyone in the world.

Instead, he is standing with five students, each of them holding hands with the people across from them, creating a massive tangle of arms. One by one, they work to unravel their arms. Within a minute or two, they are standing in a circle holding hands with the person next to them, having never let go of each other.

Van Koeverden then sends the students off to teach the game to their classmates. It’s a game that Right to Play has taught to more a million children worldwide. The Right to Play organization helps create social change in communities affected by war and poverty through games and sport. More than simply giving children an opportunity to kick a ball around, though, Right to Play’s programs teach hygiene, disease prevention, conflict resolution and cooperation.

Van Koeverden has been an athlete ambassador for Right to Play since 2004 and it was his involvement with the organization, and a chance meeting with New Central principal Merrill Mathews, that brought three-time Olympic gold medalist to the school Monday.

Mathews and van Koeverden were having breakfast in the same restaurant during the summer. Mathews approached the Olympian and told him about his own interest in Right to Play and asked if van Koeverden would come to the school to speak. Mathews based the school’s three pillars — be good to yourself and others, do your best and get involved — on Right to Play’s philosophy.

“Having Adam here helps kids make that connection. The conversation becomes more real,” Mathews said. “They’ll go home and when they’re asked about what they did in school, they can talk about this. It’s something to get the conversation started.”

Van Koeverden has started the conversation among his fellow competitors. At the 2007 worlds, van Koeverden raced in a kayak with Right to Play’s logo as the focal point.

“The goal was to spark some interest in philanthropy,” van Koeverden said.

Tim Brabants, a doctor and a gold medalist at the Beijing Olympics, inquired about the organization and soon after signed on as an athlete ambassador.

In his role as an ambassador, van Koeverden made a trip to Liberia  — one of the more than 20 countries in which Right to Play has established programs — in 2007 to experience the organization’s work first-hand. There, he saw students, 65 in the lone classroom, studying in school with tin walls, sitting on boxes that they used to carry their books.

Van Koeverden said the trip’s purpose was to inspire athlete ambassadors to continue to promote the organization and its projects. And it certainly worked.

“It was an enlightening experience,” he said. “Just to see the optimism and hope they hold on to despite their living situation and the challenges they face.”

Mathews now hopes van Koeverden’s presentation will inspire his students.

“They’re more inquisitive and hopefully the result will be more critical thinking,” Mathews said.

“When Adam talks about mosquitoes and malaria, maybe it gets them thinking ‘Why does it kill people?’”

And more importantly, Matthews said, it will inspire them to take action.

It appears that has already started. As van Koeverden began a question and answer session, he called on Abby, a Grade 5 student.

“What can we do to help?” she asked.