With the assistance from Tū Manawa Active Aotearoa funding last year in October, Northern Region Football piloted the Go Girls programme which is a female friendly (girls only) physical and mental wellbeing programme with a focus on giving sports a go in a relaxed student-led environment. The programme was developed based on feedback ascertained from female tamariki and rangatahi.

The pilot was delivered by four partners being Northern Region Football, KittedNZ, I Am Hope, and Kerikeri Gymnastics into Opononi Area School, Paparore School, and Pukenui School.

Each delivery partner taught their own session which were full of fun learning activities with a mixture of practical, on-field activities as well as classroom discussions and theory.   Around 36 girls in year 5 – 8 had the opportunity to participate in the pilot programme.

NRF's James Coleman, Go Girls Project Coordinator observed huge changes in the girls that participated and explains the benefits “initially girls were cautious at the beginning of the programme, and this changed over time with the way they opened up, interacted, and became willing participants. Additional benefits included health, wellbeing and nutritional education which saw participants actively engage and show willingness to extend their learnings to their whānau. Mental health delivery was challenging, but well received by the girls. Mixing these two programmes with agility and awareness of gymnastics and the balance and coordination of football gave the girls the ability to learn in a relaxed, fun environment”.

A few other things that helped with the success of the programme were the three school’s enthusiasm, the amazing mahi from the providers and coordinators who worked together to achieve a collective positive outcome, plus the upbeat attitudes of the participants and the way they interacted, gave new things a go and were open about themselves.

Go Girls will remain as a 5-week programme and already has 12 schools signed up to participate in 2023 with all of them acknowledging the need for it within their school community.

Zane  Davis, Sport Northland’s admin support for Tū Manawa says “It’s awesome to hear about kaupapa and how it has made a real impact in our communities, especially for our rangatahi and tamariki.”

Thanks to Sport Northland for this article. 

Find out more about the Tū Manawa Active Aotearoa Fund.

Article added: Tuesday 07 February 2023