Twenty players from the national senior women’s football team enrolled for a five-day life skills training program that started on Monday this week and ended today (Friday).
The training, held at Selebi Phikwe Technical college covered different practical and theoretical aspects that include leadership, emotional intelligence, business planning, financial management, time management, horticulture, catering and beauty therapy to mention a few. The training was funded by FIFA and facilitated by BFA in partnership with Wecho Trust.
BFA Head of Women’s Football Tsholofelo Sethoko said through the program, they intend to educate and empower women players with different life skills. She stated that last year they applied for funds from FIFA to conduct the entrepreneurship workshop. Sethoko noted that their intention is also to promote growth, sustainability of women football, to build the confidence of players, competencies and economic independence in women football.
“This is an exciting training camp that has never been done before, the key benefits of the training are to empower women in football, provide them with skills to take on leadership in football clubs, leagues and at organisational level,” she said.
According to Sethoko, the empowerment of women aims to enhance gender equality within football, as it propels them into decision makers women with the life skills. She said that the program has introduced women players to different career paths beyond football. She stated that the program opens new avenues for women to contribute and benefit from the football industry.
Wecho Trust Trustee Tsoseletso Magang has also emphasised the importance of the training, indicating that it plays a very important role in exposing women to different life skills that would improve their lives at the end of their football careers. Magang has noted that in some cases football players end up facing poverty at the end of their careers because they lacked knowledge and skills that could help them survive.
She revealed that they will continue working together with BFA in the program and also introduce other sporting codes. Magang stated that they will also make sure that the program reaches out to other places by partnering with technical schools and other entities such as LEA, CEDA and MYSC around the country.
Magang said that having 20 women participating in the training was an impressive turnout. She however expressed that in their next trainings they will consider hosting the program while schools are closed because some players could not attend as they were engaged with \ school work. Magang stated that most players who managed to attend the training are out of school.
“This is a very interesting training camp for women players, we have also hosted some fun games and other teams building activities in order to promote unite among the players, other countries host these kind of training camps and we will keep on benchmarking from them in order to improve as time goes on,” she said.
