News: November 2015
During the last three months, Michael Pedersen has been helping Sandboarding Peru integrate behavioral principles into its coaching framework for children and youth doing sandboarding in Huacachina, Peru. Michael’s help is the most recent example of his volunteer work in support of projects evolving around sport, children, values and positive societal change.
Through a series of workshops with underprivileged children and youth as well as their parents and instructors, Michael has been developing a set of nine behavioral principles for sandboarders in Huacachina, Peru. The principles, which define winning as a mix of outstanding performance and outstanding behavior, are as follows:
Sandboarders’ Principles
Performance Principles
- Confidence: I embrace the attitude that everything is possible
- Discipline: I come to every training session, work in a smart and focused way and give my best
- Perseverance: I show that I can perform even better than my coaches and others think
Team Principles
- Honesty: I pat my team members on the shoulder every time they show sportsmanship and fair play
- Respect: I treat my team members and coaches, as I would like to them to treat me
- Teamwork: I bring a positive spirit of camaraderie and collaboration to my team and ensure that everybody is feeling included, accepted and cared for
Community Principles
- Citizenship: I volunteer at least one hour of my time every week to support my community, especially to help keeping the sand dunes in Huacachina clean
- Give: I value unselfishly helping others
- Responsibility: I show that I am a worthy role model – on and off the sand dunes
The behavioral principles will now be integrated into the coaching framework for sandboarding in Huacachina, Peru. Huacachina, which is an oasis 300 kilometers south of Lima, offers spectacular scenery and an ideal training ground for sandboarding with some of the biggest sand dunes in the world.
Reflecting on the experience, Michael Pedersen says: “It has been a very fulfilling experience to support the remarkable work of Sandboarding Peru, not least because of its approach in offering sandboarding to underprivileged children and youth free of charge. The approach of integrating behavioral principles into the coaching framework has the potential to be scaled and replicated for sandboarding in other parts of Peru and the rest of the world, under the umbrella of International Sandboarding Federation.”
Martin Gueterra, Director General of Sandboarding Peru adds: “Sandboarding is a hard sport to develop. After a long time, people like Michael appear to support the work. That is very important for the future of the sport in the world. I hope that we can continue working together in creating a new sport culture in my country for the benefit of future generations.”
The work in Huacachina has been endorsed by the leadership of the Regional Government of Ica, Peru, for example through its presence at a principles signing ceremony on 20 November 2015. The support is expected to offer new opportunities for more children and youth to do sandboarding, for instance by offering a sandboarding summer school to a large number of children and youth in the local area. Furthermore, one of the sandboarders, 16-year-old Aldahir Herhuay, is currently being considered for a potential opportunity to represent Peru as a snowboarder at the 2016 Youth Olympic Winter Games in Norway, on the basis of support by the Peruvian Olympic Committee.
For further information about sandboarding, see the website of Sandboarding Peru (in Spanish).
For further information about Michael Pedersen’s collaboration with Sandboarding Peru, see the news item of Sandboarding Peru (in Spanish).
For further information about Michael Pedersen’s volunteer work in support of projects evolving around sport, children, values and positive societal change, see the Giving Back section of this website.