The Gambia Football Federation (GFF) and German government on Wednesday drew the curtain on a two-year partnership to develop grassroots women’s football in the country.
The closing was held in the form of a colourful ceremony at the McCarthy Square in Banjul. And declaring the program closed, the Minister for Youth and Sports Bakary Y. Badjie expressed delight in being part of the program. “It’s good to be part of this process even though it’s the ending of it. Coming to this closing ceremony shows that a lot of work has been done by the people at the German Embassy, the GFF and NSC [National Sports Council] to ensure that we have our young females who are interested in football to develop their skills at an early age,” he said.
“This is great for the fact that, for a very long time our focus had always been on men’s football, so few years ago is when this women’s football starts to gain strength. I, therefore, urged the GFF to ensure that the program continues.”
Deputizing for the GFF President, the Third Vice President Rtd. General Langtombong Tamba reiterated the Executive Committee’s commitment to promoting women’s football and promised to continue with the program. “We believe in partnership because it’s partnership that can lead you to achieve success. So our partnership with this German project have really earned us success and this is a success that we will never forget that’s why we want more collaborations with the German Embassy with the support of the Ministry to launch phase two. Today a lot of the children have developed interest in playing football; some of them had never kicked a ball before this program. They are more than interested to become star players like Sainey Sissoho and Veronic Malack,” he affirmed.
General Tamba, who doubles as the head of youth and women’s football at Football House added further: “I’m happy to say here that there are people who have been prepared to take over from Monica when she leaves; that’s Sainey Sissoho and her team to continue with this program.”
Speaking earlier, the Charge de Affairs of the German Embassy in The Gambia, Ms. Isabell Blochl, said her Embassy is happy to be associated with the project. “We hope that this project will have a lasting impact especially with the teachers’ handbook which was developed as part of this project. The project team came up with the idea of creating a handbook, using the lessons learned from this project here in The Gambia. I’m proud to say that there’s not just interest in The Gambia for this handbook but also in many other countries, [and] maybe very soon physical education teachers and coaches around the world will use this handbook made in The Gambia for their trainings,” she affirmed, while thanking the GFF for the work done during the course of the program.
In her remarks, the German football expert, Ms. Monica Staab, who is the focal person for the project couldn’t hide her joy with the achievements of the program. “I have a wonderful one and half years I spent here. We did a lot and we were able to get three hundred coaches all over the country. We have at least two thousand girls we reached and I think in that time we really made these girls happy and they were able to play the game,” she remarked.
“Another achievement we made was to sign an MoU with the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education. I think that’s a milestone and we had lots of girls from the schools. We had a 30-minute documentary of the project in Germany so Gambia was all over Germany. We had many videos on YouTube of the trainings and the festivals we did.”
The ceremony capped off with the handing over of the Handbook produced by teh project to Youth & Sports Minister Badjie, which was followed by the final day of the girl’s football activities for Banjul.
