Students have the Time of their Life

Adventure Tourism Management (ATM) students Hannah Thompson and Meriel Hubbard recently returned from the trip of a lifetime to The Gambia. 

As part of their final year, ATM students carry out a 3 week expedition of their choice to put all the theory they have learnt into practice. Hannah and Meriel decided straight away that they wanted their expedition to also have an element of charity and with that notion in place started looking for ideas of where to go and what to do there. 

The students found Wednesbury based charity ‘Wonder Years Centre of Excellence’ working in The Gambia providing learning opportunities for underprivileged children there.

With The Gambia chosen as their destination Hannah then approached her dad who is the Secretary of Coventry football club, Christ the King FC, to see if the club would like to be involved.  The teams in Coventry were keen to share their opportunities with others and the plan to go to The Gambia and set up junior football teams was born.

A combination of fundraising events and donations then followed with the girls collecting over £2000 as well as football kits and equipment which was sent out to The Gambia by Coventry based logistics company Gefco.

On arrival in the village of Medina Salaam, where they were based for the trip, nothing could have prepared them for the welcome that greeted them; villagers turned up to greet them and Hannah and Meriel got out of the car and were walked to the village in a ceremonial procession.

Once in The Gambia the students became something of celebrities with radio, TV and newspaper coverage and meetings with government ministers, they even had the honour of twins who were born during their stay being named after them! However what they were really there for was the football and the ideas they put into action whilst there saw came to fruition with the culmination of their stay being a tournament which brought together four, previously rival, villages.

Hannah and Meriel plan to return to The Gambia later in the year to see the progress being made and members of Christ the King FC are keen to make the trip out to foster the hopefully permanent link between the clubs.

For more information about Adventure Tourism Management visit the course pages.