By Dewi Spijkerman | Workshop Leader
The Girls & Football SA team has had an incredibly exciting past three months.
We have continued running our workshops in South Africa, this time working at a school in the Bo-Kaap area in South Africa. We were also able to attend the girls-only football tournaments in South Africa, which were beyond exciting. During these tournaments, we are able to provide participants with a variety of workshops that aid in a healthy development.
We realize that working in the field of women’s sport requires us to accurately tell our stories. We think telling these stories is important not only to the experience of our participants, but also for the experience of our workshop leaders. We were fortunate to attend the Women Win Digital Story Telling Training in Amsterdam. Here, we met with leading women in the sport for development field. The purpose of the training was to support attendees in learning how to transfer Digital Storytelling skills to workshop participants. Digital Storytelling refers to a short form of digital media production that equips everyday people to share their experiences.
Being able to identify important personal stories is a very crucial part of development through sport. Being able to translate these stories for both a public audience and for a private audience is also a very valuable skill. Working in a team with women leading in the sport for development field was a true pleasure; hearing the stories of our colleagues was a true inspiration!
Towards the end of November, the Spar Group and GSport for Girls organized the GSport awards, which celebrates women in sport in South Africa. We were beyond excited to receive an invitation to the award-ceremony and are proud of our board member, Fran Hilton-Smith, who was nominated for the Woman of the Year award. Despite not having received the award this year, we are incredibly proud and honored to have such a powerful woman on our Girls & Football SA team.
Over the last three years, Fran has been an instrumental player in supporting our work at Girls & Football SA. Having managed 3 national teams and dedicating her life to growing women’s football in South Africa, Fran has been a pillar in the development of female football. She believes that women’s sport and women’s football is crucial to the development of South African women, and she has dedicated a tremendous part of her life to the development of girls and women’s football.
“Girls & Football SA has delivered great work in combining life skills with football skills,” Fran says. She continues, “Combining life skills with football skills is such a bit contribution to the empowerment of women.”
She believes that when girls have a stronger sense of self and learn important life skills, they are better equipped to lead healthy and successful lives.
We want to take a minute to thank Fran, she’s an inspiration to us and to the women and men in South Africa.
And thank you, for generous donations. We appreciate it very much and look forward to the next year!
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