Girls & Football South Africa: Creating Change and Making a Difference

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

Bringing a soccer ball anywhere in South Africa will draw a crowd of potential players, spectators and armchair coaches and in a township you will find yourself in the middle of a mob of excited participants, where any surface can serve as a field. The country literally oozes soccer, with informal and formal leagues and games constantly being played at schools, on the road, in fields and even beside the highway.

What is missing? Girls.

Girls and young women are just as excited by soccer but have almost no opportunities to play. If there is a chance, it is often on teams or in games where they may be the only female playing. This can be extremely intimidating and creates a real barrier to participating in sports.

This is what inspired us to start Girls & Football SA. After tonnes of research, interviews and assessments we began developing a unique approach to using sport as a development tool for girls. We designed a program that focuses on “a girls only space” and emphasizes learning life skills while enjoying the beautiful game.

The idea of this girl’s only space was so totally new it became a real hit with all of our participants. When we do workshops every week the girls protect their time and space fiercely by speaking up and telling boys it’s their turn to play and to leave the area we are using. They have embraced sportswomanship and though highly competitive at times they still cheer and congratulate each other on every accomplishment, goal scored or shot blocked.

We start each session off which a check in, where each person says a bit about how they are feeling that day. Most answers reflect a general excitement about getting to play soccer that day. Then we do an activity to warm up, we tell interactive stories getting the girls to jump over imaginary logs, run up huge mountains and dodge tree branches or start with a running exercise. By this point the girls are usually itching to get their hands on a ball, so we start with a few drills focused on passing, shooting, dribbling, opening up space and using your head in the game. While we do these drills volunteer coaches go around and help each girl improve providing with encouraging words, short demonstrations and a lot of high fives. This gives us a chance to teach them about setting and meeting goals, perseverance and teamwork! Then comes the part of the day everyone looks forward to, playing a real soccer game. The excited laughter and squealing usually draws a bit of a crowd, which only encourages the girls to show off their skills to anyone who happens to stop by.

Working together has been a major journey for our two teams, but it something they have tackled and mastered in a short amount of time. Encouraging words, emphatic dancing and cheering are the background music for every one of our sessions. You could not ask for a better boost to the spirits than to witness their excitement!

Find out more about our programming at <a href="http://www.girlsandfootballsa.com" target="_blank">www.girlsandfootballsa.com</a>

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

• Soccer
• Sports
• SportsPLUS
• Inspiration
• Cause/Charity
• Travel
• International/World
• Sportsmanship
• Europe/Intl

This article was written by a WomenTalkSports.com contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own women's sports content.

View Sonia @ Girls & Football SA's Full Profile