NFA’s Galz & Goals lights up Khorixas

NFA’s Galz & Goals project has high hopes as it heads to Keetmanshoop for the Karas regional festival on Saturday.

Coming hot on the heels of its visit to Khorixas last week in what proved to be the most productive week yet of the Unicef-funded programme, aimed at empowering adolescent girls through participation in football, the Karas Region has a lot to live up to.The Volunteer Organisation of the Year at the Namibia Sport Awards and Galz & Goals partner, SCORE Namibia, delivered Life Skills Coaching to teachers, coaches and volunteers who will go on to create what will be the first Under-13 and Under-15 girls football leagues ever in the Kunene region for the coming season.Brave Gladiators coach and national manager for SCORE Namibia Jacqui Shipanga used the example of Sportswoman of the Year Nominee Emmerencia ‘Kleintjie’ Fredericks, also in attendance in the Khorixas Youth Centre, as an illustration of what can be achieved through young girls’ soccer.Kleintjie was just like many other girls in Namibia, hanging around the streets with nothing positive to focus on. Through football as well as mentoring and coaching from the NFA’s Women’s desk, Kleintjie has gone on to become the top striker for the Brave Gladiators and a leading young woman in Namibian sport as a whole.Some of the most skilful young players yet were on show at the Welwitschias Secondary School field. The honours in the U/13 age group went to Versteende Woud Primary School, while Outjo Senior Primary made the journey home from Khorixas seem all the shorter, picking up the U/15 prize following a spectacular winning free kick in the dying seconds of the final. The total number of girl players participating in the project so far has reached an amazing 739, after just three festivals.Completing the hat trick of Namibia Sport Award nominees in Khorixas was Jackey Gertze, nominee for administrator of the year, who remarked on the impact of the programme to places like Khorixas.’Galz & Goals can be so important to towns like Khorixas, where the grass field or the stadium may not always be available, but where the people on the ground, the volunteers and the NFA women’s committee for Kunene, must improvise and work together to ensure that leagues, festivals and friendly matches are organised for girls to play in.’ Speaking at the opening ceremony of Saturday’s festival, the Mayor of Khorixas, councillor M Tsaeb, encouraged the 220 players to embrace Galz & Goals’ message of a healthy lifestyle.’Although all sport codes are regarded as a form of self-employment in today’s modern life, the most essential aspect about sport is our own health. It is true that a healthy community makes a healthy nation. I am therefore proud to cherish the U/13 and U/15 girls’ football under the Galz & Goals project. It is my sincere hope and belief that this exercise will keep you healthy at all times.’The next port of call for the Galz & Goals Project is Keetmanshoop (hometown to six players in the Brave Gladiators’ current starting line-up), and the Karas regional Festival, which kicks off with Healthy Lifestyle workshops for local leaders on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and ending with the Girls festival taking place on Saturday at 07h30 at the JS Stephanus Stadium.