Girls’ Coaches Trained in Football 4 Life

THE NFA Galz & Goals programme with support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) trained 14 girls’ football coaches on how to enhance their players’ life skills through their football trainings on the 6th and 7th of April 2018.

The training took place at the NFA Girls Centre in Windhoek.

NFA Galz & Goals provides life skills training for coaches as a key component of the programme. Lydia Hatzenberg, the Regional Coordinator of the Windhoek Galz & Goals League and co-facilitator of the Football 4 Life training explains; “It is important to train our coaches in life skills coaching as they work with our young girls and shape them into future national players, role models and decent citizens of our country.”

Football in itself is a game where the players naturally improve their life skills, such as team work, communication skills, focus, determination and much more. Football 4 Life aims to further teach and develop life skills in the young players through age appropriate activities and conversations with their team mates and coach, connecting their experiences on the field with real life situations.

Two of the coaches that were trained last weekend are coaching Namibia Premier League teams as well as youth teams. “It is wonderful to see that coaches are committed to developing the youth. The young girls and boys might one day make us proud in the national colours,” says Jackie Gertze, the National Manager of the NFA Galz & Goals programme.

Four volunteer coaches from the SCORE NAM-VIP programme attended the training, bringing life skills coaching to some of the most remote areas of Windhoek.

For many of the participating coaches it was their first time to learn how to integrate life skills coaching into their football training sessions and they displayed great interest and understanding of the concept.