Girls’ football festival at Spartans today

This year will be our 5th event. Pupils from primaries 6 and 7 from our local primary schools will be taking part in our festival that takes place today (Friday 7th June). This is also the start of the Women’s World Cup where we are super excited to watch the progress of the Scotland Women’s Team!

We are delighted that, with the support of Hanya Partners , we have had the opportunity to continue our partnership with Parikrma Foundation in India but also to create a second link with Together in Sport Rwanda.

This year we are giving the amazing young women who volunteer with us in our community programmes the responsibility of delivering some of the coaching sessions during the morning’s activities. Our ambassadors will be  paired up with lead coaches who will mentor and support them to deliver their sessions.

Our women’s development officer Jude has been preparing for the festival by visiting our local schools to introduce them to the day. With the World Cup kicking off on the same day we’ve created an education pack full of fun quizzes and exercises that challenges the pupils to research and learn about the different countries that will be playing at the tournament.

The day will include football activities but also a smoothie bike and face painting. ‘Hey Girls’, a social enterprise that focuses on education around periods and period poverty in the UK, will be on hand to answer any questions from the pupils.

Meanwhile …

At Together in Sport, Kari has been busy preparing for their girls’ sports festival that will also run on the 7th June:

“Over the last few weeks, I have been delivering sport leadership workshops with 6 girls who are going to be the main leaders at the festival. The festival links really well with our “Girls’ Space” project that is helping the girls develop vocational, social and emotional skills.

“Delivering at the festival will give our leaders confidence and self-esteem. When they first started the project in Feb 2018 many could not hold a conversation or hold eye contact with each other. The difference now is huge and they are all super excited to be leaders for the event.

“Some of our participants have enjoyed the challenge of completing the education pack that Jude at Spartans gave to us.

“On the week running up to the 7th I will be running a Girls’ Sport week at the school to get everyone ready for the big day where we will start with an aerobics warm up and then split into groups to take part in not only football but also hockey and fitness assault courses.

“We are encouraging parents to come along to watch – so it should be a fun filled community day!”