Thanks to Gudrun Jevne, Women’s Development Coordinator at Street League, and Rebecca Malcolm for this report:
Great weather, great football, great spirit, great people! – What more could one want for Street League’s 2nd women’s only match day?! Lunch and refreshments? Tick. Over 40 participants? Tick. Skilful organisation from a committed staff team? Tick. A Mercury Music Award Winner in the bright and brilliant Speech Debelle? Tick!
The rising hip hop star, fresh on the heels of her win at the prestigious music awards, attended the tournament and handed out prizes to all the winning teams. Speech felt a particular affinity with the programme, as it focuses on getting under represented groups into sport – in particular homeless women, and she raps openly about her own experiences with homelessness and when she was living in hostels.
Street League uses the power of sport to engage with anyone not in full time education and employment. The match days act as a hook to engage with participants who can go on to do coaching qualifications, sports leadership, drama, self-defence, circus skills, job skills and motivational workshops. These are brilliant as a springboard to employment, education and training.
The women’s only match days aim to:
- Achieve greater visibility for women’s football and women’s sports
- Celebrate female role models – aiding increased participation
- Lower the barriers to participation for existing and potential female participants.
- Be a community event – open to individual players, volunteers, smaller groups of players, beginners, experienced players, spectators, concert-goers – where one can participate on any level!
Speech Debelle is an inspirational role model and acted as a draw for new and existing participants. The concert she held for our participants was personal and intimate and we had brilliant feedback from our participants and volunteers!
Street League are continuously striving to lower the barriers to participation for women in sports. The event highlights two things 1) that there is no “magic bullet” as far as women’s participation in sports is concerned, but continued graft alongside strategic research into lowering barriers to participation 2) the importance of the support that Speech Debelle provided – the buzz she created amongst the players and the interest she generated before are invaluable to our work in reaching more people. We are striving to reach many other potential players, who experience complex barriers to participation and ambassadors really help open the doors for new participants, into our services.
