Communities that participate in sport and recreation develop strong social bonds and gain a greater understanding of other backgrounds, cultures and traditions, are safer places and the people who live in them are generally healthier and happier than places where physical activity is not a priority.

THE NEED

Geelong's northern suburbs has a great mix of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities, with many who are not currently involved in or participate in any regular or structured sporting activity.

For a lot of the CALD communities, soccer is an extremely popular sport and in the past 12-24 months the venue management team has had many expressions of interest from various community leaders about the sport of soccer being made available and affordable on a regular basis to female players.

Females within these new communities have had limited access to attend and participate in regular sporting activity and also for many, meeting the requirements or demands of traditional club football / soccer is just not achievable with family and school commitments taking priority.

This program has been developed  specifically to provide these young females with an outlet to play the sport they love on a regular basis in a safe and welcoming environment at the Leisuretime Sports Precinct.

AIMS & OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

• Provide a weekly Female Football program in a friendly and safe atmosphere;
• Build players into positive role models and leaders within the community;
• Be financial sustainable to become a long term program; The 2018 program operations have been supported by the Rotary of Corio Bay & it's members, which will help keep program costs down for players (which will be just $2.00 per player / per week throughout the first season).
• League ownership by the players – the players in this league will be encouraged from the very beginning to be involved to help shape the league, help develop key policies, procedures, codes of behaviours and rules of competition;
• Develop and train new female referees; with members of the new communities becoming referees and having the ability to earn money (casual work) and learn new skills while also helping to grow the sport for female participation by having females being able to manage, deliver and officiate all aspects of the game;
• Club development – help players understand there is more to sport, especially clubs, than just turning up and playing. Provide resources and training for members to gain a better understanding of ‘how to run a club’ and keeping it operational. Simple tasks such as washing uniforms or correctly filling out registration forms, booking training facilities, etc. are all part of it.
• Bring the community together through sport.

The City of Greater Geelong staff at both the Leisuretime Sports Precinct & The fOrT youth centre delivered two 'come & try sessions throughout June 2018 which had a great response with 11 attending week one and 18 attending week two. Of all the players that attended only one player is currently playing club football outdoors in 2018, and two other players had previously played but are not playing currently in 2018.

Below is a review of the 'come and try' sessions that launched the new program by one of the female participants and also her view of the project concept...

"Our first  & second ‘come and try’ session was on the 18th and 25th of June. During the first week we had 11 girls turned up and 18 girls turned up on the second week. It was a great start, with lots of laugh and fun. Out of all the girls who came to the ‘come& try’ session, only two girls had played in a club and some of the girls that came have never play soccer before but they really enjoyed the first two sessions.

This futsal program will keep the young girls to stay active, it will also be a weekly activity that the girls can enjoy after school. It is important for the girls to have a weekly activities that they can participate, other than studying and working all the time. This Futsal Program will allows the girls to meet with new people from different background, learn about soccer rules, staying healthy and most importantly having fun. We want to encourage more new arrival young girls to stay active and get involved in the wider Geelong community.

Hence, it would be amazing if the wider community can promote and support the new Women Futsal Program so that more girls can find out about it, come along and have fun”.