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Team Emmanuel

Meet us at 1:30, we are off on an adventure.

I hear the word adventure and the words light up.

The clank of the matatu comes around the corner. “Team Emmanuel” glows with a green banner. Faith, Brian, Jayden jump out shaking my hand. Emmanuel’s three young children. Emmanuel introduces himself, a tall man with a kind face and an air of humility. This is a whole family affair today.

How it started

Emmanuel noticed young people running without shoes in the forest. Without the right gear, shoes, clothes. One by one, he gathered them together.

Now the 16 strong team have been showing up for over two years to join his coaching group. They are aged between 8 and 16. The team always seems to be laughing and joking at each other, apart from when the start running. Then, the chatting has to stop. On Saturdays, it’s an 8km run. When Emmanuel has his own long runs and cannot be there, the group still runs their 8km target. On Sundays it’s core or hills in the forest. In the holidays, Emmanuel meets up with the group every single day. He picks them up in the Team Emmanuel matatu, collecting young people from their houses when they don’t show up. He gives them donated kit from tourists visiting the camp where he works. Since he has been part of the community in Iten for such a long time, he is well aware of which young people need it the most.

“There was 23, but these are the ones that remain, that have been committed for the last 2 years.”

The team

We pick up a young girl on the side of the road. Becky. At 14 years old, she greets us with calm confidence. She is the team captain. The mixed team captain. Anywhere in the world this would be significant. However, it is especially noteworthy here. The profile of GBV has risen with the noticeable tragedies of champions such as Tirop.

Becky leads a mixed team of 16 people. She has responsibility. She shows up. She speaks confidently in front of her team mates. She is in charge of divvying up any newly collected kit. She has an air of authority that is respected, but she is also friends with her team mates. Her leadership in running directly translates to other parts of her life. She wants to be a champion, Emmanuel tells me.

The field

We arrive at a playing field. Jeremiah allows Emmanuel to use the field next to his house whenever he wants to facilitate team training. When Emmanuel can’t make it, Jeremiah watches over the team to ensure a safe space.

Becky runs inside. It turns out Jeremiah is her dad. She returns with a long piece of rope. It’s a skipping tournament, time to play. One by one, more of the team start turning up, from the youngest at 8 years old to 16 years old. The playing field becomes filled with laughter. Everyone joins the skipping tournament. One at a time, two at a time; we try three at a time skipping in unison. It doesn’t quite work.

Emmanuel takes over at holding the skipping rope. His calm, respected aura doesn’t stop him from joining in the games with the young people. There is a bond in this group that I watch as we take part in skipping games for hours.

The tracksuits

Something special is happening today. The team have been brought together 3 hours earlier than their usual Sunday training session.

Team Emmanuel has recently received significant donor support. One by one, each young person receives a new matching tracksuit. “Team Emmanuel” on the back and on a badge on the front. The navy tracksuits are glistening as they put them on. Everyone is smiling, they adjust the clothes of each other.

These young people didn’t turn up for the last 2 years because they knew about the tracksuits. They turned up because of the benefits that coming gave to them. The unknown reward of turning up, of making bonds with people aligned with who you are.

It is good that they have got them after 2 years of showing up, Emmanuel says. Otherwise, it just seems that everything is given to you. Instead, this shows the reward from consistency and commitment. Other children will be asking them how they got them and where they got them from. It will create an aspirational side to the team that rewards the young people.

These tracksuits show them belonging. It makes the team aspirational.

Into the forest

I arrive at 4:20 thinking I was going to be late but Emmanuel is the most punctual man I know. Early at the meet point with a full matatu of Team Emmanuel. The 16 kids aged 8 to 16 all laughing in their new Team Emmanuel tracksuits.

Emmanuel collects bananas from Grace, pre-emptive of the post-training hunger for the kids. One step ahead, always.

A little trip and we are on our way to Kakamega forest, just outside of Iten. There’s a splutter from the matatu. Emmanuel revs it continuously. Then, just as we are approaching an ascent, it cuts out completely.

Everyone get out here and run to the meeting point, I will go to the mechanic and meet you there.

It’s 1km of mostly uphill. Becky asks me “what’s your favourite Kenyan food?” as we are running at the steepest part. I reply while swallowing half my breath so that the words gurgle on the back of my throat and no one can hear my panting. Not a single pant is coming from anyone around me.

Running on soft ground

We go to the bottom of a 200m ascent. 12 rounds and we swap the leader every time. Emmanuel shows the team how to swing their arms and the “forward falling” running technique. After each round they look increasingly out of breath but they are smiling after each call of encouragement from Coach.

We don’t want to do too much with them, they are young. Running on this ground is so good for them because they are too young to be running on hard roads, it will hurt their bones.

The dense forest stretches for hectares. You could do 40km just running routes around these trails. People train here during recovery from injury because the ground is soft. Gyms around here are very expensive for local amateurs. The forest is a place for the community.

Emmanuel tells me the stories behind this group. This is a group where there is no pressure. They are all here because they love to run. Some of them want to be doctors, some of them want to be physios, others want to be Agnes Chebet.

What is clear when Emmanuel talks, is that the effect of movement — of consistently bringing together this group — has also meant that they are inspired, motivated and energised in other parts of their lives. Their results at school have increased substantially, Emmanuel tells me.

It is really important that they find these sessions fun and they are not pushed hard, otherwise they will get to 18 and they will just stop, they will stop chasing their dreams because they will have done too much.

Emmanuel’s words hit hard.

No one goes without

Bananas are divvied up by Victor, the oldest. An insight into the sorting things for yourself and team mentality that Emmanuel teaches them.

Just as we pull off, one of the guys jumps out — he’s lost 10 shillings. We search in the grass. Back in the matatu, Emmanuel finds 10 shillings in his jacket and gives it to the boy.

No one goes without here and Emmanuel makes sure of it.

Does everyone’s parents support you?

“I have met a lot of them, I went with my kids when I told them what I was doing. That gained a lot of respect, when they saw me as a father.”

Some of the children couldn’t come at first because their parents didn’t support what he was doing. But after visiting them and explaining the group, most of them understood more clearly and their children returned.

What Emmanuel is building

Emmanuel tells me he is inspired by Bush, Obama, because they both started small, they inspired others, they led, they spoke to audiences, they wrote books. Their effect was much larger than they knew it would be when they first started.

2 years of training this group every week. A new matatu is on its way.

The effects of what Emmanuel is building here in Iten is massive. And it is really felt.

It is felt by the young people running through the gates to Becky’s garden. It is felt when they all skip together, in a place where age and gender is not looked upon. It is felt in the gleam in Emmanuel’s eyes when he sees what bringing people together creates.

There is an inspiration here that goes beyond running.

This is what the community here comes together to build.