The Valley Community is teaching the basics of football to its youngest members in the hope that they will develop an interest in the growing sport – not only in Anguilla, but world-wide.
Saturday, October 10, was the first time that the children were introduced to the sport – on the Coronation Park – by a number of executives of The Valley Grass-root Programme.
Technical Director of the programme, Javille Brooks, told The Anguillian newspaper: “The progamme is pretty much geared to youth development in The Valley community. It is to teach them the game at a very young age and to build on their talent. They are children going to The Valley Primary School and we are delighted to be working with them.”
President of the programme, Romero Kelsick, commented: “It is a very good initiative. This is the level at which children of all ages come and learn the game. As you know, football is an international sport and there are a lot of benefits that can be achieved by playing this sport. Football also teaches our children skills for life. They learn team work, discipline – and it helps to build their confidence, character and self-esteem. Therefore, this initiative is to focus our youth in a positive direction; and, even though it is The Valley community, we welcome other children who want to learn the sport. Too often we are losing our young people and this is one way in which Javille, other executive members and I, are giving back to the community. We have been footballers for years and football has been very good to us.”
Dorla Hodge, known for her work among young people at the Ebenezer Methodist Church, and in The Valley community, is one of the executives of The Valley Grass-root Programme. She told the newspaper: “It involves a newly-formed group from The Valley and we have come together to create this initiative. You will find that there are a number of grass-root programmes in various communities across the island, and we wanted to create an environment where the children in The Valley can come to a place where they can be safe and have fun.
“Every Saturday, from 9 am until 10.30 am, we will be here at Coronation Park, facilitating this programme. We are really happy about the turnout on the first day because we were not sure what to anticipate. We can see the programme really growing from here on, and we are excited about it.”
