In 2023, Dalhousie University assistant swimming coach Madeline Shivgulam started the program “Hear Me Roar” to bring her varsity sports experience to elementary schools across the Halifax Regional Municipality.
“Hear Me Roar” is a program created to motivate underprivileged children to join sports and get active with Dalhousie’s student athletes. The student athletes give an oral presentation to the children where the athletes share the impact sports has had on their lives. Then there is a hands-on component where the athletes run the children through games and drills specific to their sport.
St. Joseph’s-Alexander McKay Elementary, Clayton Park Junior High, Duc d’Anville Elementary School and John Martin Junior High are the home to this year’s presentations as the schools signed up for four workshops, two in the fall and two in the winter.
Shivgulam approached co-captains of the women’s swimming team Elaine Gentleman and Emile Schofield to help organize the program. Both kinesiology students at Dal, the pair wanted to give back to the community as sports have had a huge impact on each of their lives.
“I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to be a part of sport at a high level,” Gentleman said. “So I have a large skill set and a large understanding of physical activity to be able to use that to give back to my community.”
Schofield said she wanted to share her experiences growing up in sport and her time spent at Dal as a student athlete.
“I love teaching younger kids, and sport is just one of my passions,” Schofield said.
Schofield said poor behaviour and illness is on the rise in younger children and the program wants to help prevent this through physical activity.
The program focuses on swimming, track, soccer and volleyball where they have two athletes from the specific sport running through drills and activities.
The beginning
In 2023, Noah Mascoll-Gomes started “Making Waves,” which focused on introducing swimming to those who traditionally have less access to swimming lessons, specifically African Nova Scotians.
Shivgulam was inspired by the program and wanted to expand past the walls of swimming. She focused on creating a program that brought sports, physical activity and exercise promotion all together. Shivgulam also hoped to introduce these workshops that had educational and physical aspects.
As Shivgulam exited sport as a player she was able to look back at the profound impact it had on her life and felt she had the resources at Dalhousie and from her time spent being a physical activity and health researcher to be able to give back to the community.
“It’s time to give back and share this love with people who don’t necessarily get the opportunity to feel a part of something like I did,” Shivgulam said.
She said the program was different when she started compared to what it is today, which she credits to Gentleman and Schofield.
“We kind of put our cognitive power together,” Shivgulam said.
What a session looks like
The first 20 minutes of a session at a school is made up of the oral presentation from two student athletes. The athletes are to choose from a group of themes such as accountability, motivation, sportsmanship and resilience. During the presentation the athletes share their stories as athletes, as well as how they learned about the topic they chose and how they apply it to their day to day life.
The remaining 40 minutes is made up of physical activity and workshops based on their chosen sport. For instance, the group of children may play soccer amongst themselves, participate in relay races for track, or take part in swimming or volleyball activities while trying to apply the topic from the presentation to their sport.
Shivgulam said the reason they wanted to have the presentation aspect of the program was to showcase how much athletes have learned from sport through storytelling.
“One of the really beautiful things about sport and being involved in sport is not just the sport such as the physical activity,” Shivgulam said. “But you gain so many experiences from it and it really shapes who you become as a human being.”
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