Bags are packed, school stuff is in backpacks, the passion and desire to get going abounds in that first trip… Except this time you can’t. Whoever could have predicted that everything would grind to a halt? But that’s the way it is. All of a sudden, planes are grounded; balls are in cages and everyone’s at home. “And now? What do we do?”. This is exactly what we coaches have been asking ourselves on our first day of Smart Working. “Well, we talk a lot about resilience in our coaching courses and now is the time to put it into practice,” we answered in unison.

So instead of being both coaches and educators on a football pitch, we are now both coaches and actors within these four walls, making videos of games to be played and distributed to all 30 Inter Campus countries. Water bottles became cones and recycled paper became footballs. That’s how such games of ours were born as “the witch commands the colors”, “the magic colored square” and “the forest at home”, which the children then copy and send back to us in their local groups. But there’s another aspect; using technology where possible, we talk to coaches and children, organize video-calls, set up calls between different countries and we get to know, even if only online, kids of diverse nationalities.

Elias, a Mexican boy, and Valeria, from the USA, asked each other what their favorite food was… the answer, without hesitation, was the same: PIZZA! The analytical phase virtually became an ad hoc quiz, and the implementation phase turned into a spinning wheel; with just one click, the wheel spins and the first kid to find the indicated object wins (obviously only after having created the necessary safety protocols).

When the calls end, we find ourselves in front of the screen with all kinds of hats, tropical fruit, sunglasses, and typical objects, from the USA to Bolivia, from Mexico to Russia; these last two countries even greeted each other in a video made by the children of our orphanages, for whom home is school and vice versa. Of course, nothing is like traveling and being on a football pitch, and we all look forward to returning to visit our countries, our children, and our coaches… But when there is resilience, even the greatest difficulties can be overcome and transformed into opportunities.