300 Girls for 2010 (300 Days to go)

The 14^th of August 2009 marked 300 days to go to kick-off of the tournament.  Since this date was in August, when Woman's Month is celebrated, the 2010 unit decided to marry the two ideas and host an event on the Public Holiday (10 August 2009) for girl football players.  Also, because it was 300 days to go, the theme of “300 girls for 2010” created an ideal angle.

Working together with the Dreamfields Project and Western Cape School Sport, we identified schools that had existing soccer clubs of under 13 and under 17 girls in the area.  We invited schools from as far as Grassy Park, Nyanga and Stellenbosch to participate in the tournament and accepted them on a first-come first-served basis until we had reached our target of 300.

On event day the Provincial Government of the Western Cape hosted 300 girls in Bonteheuwel on the Cape Flats. Each participant was presented with a pair of Umbro soccer boots and a ball to encourage further play.

The 2010 football ambassadors provided an interactive coaching clinic and the teams that were knocked out of the tournament attended a session hosted by our Social Dialogue colleagues who had invited Molo Songololo girl-child ambassadors and spoke about “pride of being a girl-child”.  The Premier was invited to watch the final match and presented the winning teams as well as the runners-up in both age groups with Zakumi dolls as prizes.

Premier of the Western Cape, Ms Helen Zille with the 2010 football ambassadors