Cairo, 07 August 2017 - The British Council and the Premier League celebrate ten years of their Premier Skills programme this year. Commemorating this successful scheme in Egypt, the British Council in Egypt and the Egyptian Ministry of Youth and Sports are partnering to deliver Premier Skills until August 2019.
On 5-11 August 2017 Premier League Coach Educator Paul Hughes will lead the seven day phase one programme. Paul will be supported by Paula Taylor from Portsmouth FC and Jill Stacey from Newcastle FC, who will work alongside three Egyptian coach educators to train 60 coaches. Each of these coaches will use these skills in training 200 children; aimed at cascading to 12,000 young people from six governorates Ismailia, Dakahlia, Port Said, Aswan, Luxor, and Sharqia in total from this workshop alone.
On 11 August H.E. Khaled Abdel Aziz Minister of Youth and Sports, Jeff Streeter Director British Council Egypt and Hassan Mistikawy CEO of Wadi Degla sporting club, will attend a one-day football festival for 100 children from different youth centres, which will be led by the newly trained coaches. This will be followed by signing on an Operational Alliance between British Council and Wadi Degla Sporting club at a press conference at Olympic Centre In Maadi. the objective of the Operational Alliance will be to include Wadi Degla sporting club as key partner in upcoming Premier Skills courses and events.
Premier Skills is a global coaching and refereeing programme coordinated by the Premier League and the British Council. The programme uses football to develop a brighter future for young people around the world, drawing upon the global appeal of the Premier League and its expertise in delivering community programmes in the UK, alongside the British Council’s global network and track record of delivery.
Through Premier Skills, young people, often including the most vulnerable in society, are given opportunities to become better integrated into their local communities, to develop their skills for employability and to raise their self-esteem.
The Premier Skills model for delivery sees Premier League Club coaches provide face to face training and education materials to local community coaches, youth leaders and teachers in countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas, with a view to participants cascading their newly acquired skills to their peers and the young people back in their own schools and communities.
In Egypt, Premier Skills has trained 554 coaches, 50 referees and implemented 50 football based community projects in 100 youth centres in 27 governorates, cascading to over 64,000 young people in the last ten years.
H.E. Khaled Abdel Aziz, Minister of Youth and Sports, stated: “Such workshops emphasize the important role of sports in society; where sport is viewed beyond health, fun or even luxury, but as an important channel through which values and principles are communicated. Premier Skills stresses the values of fair play, humility, loyalty and patriotism, as well as being a truly successful example of a sports development project."
Tim Vine, Director of International Relations, Premier League said: “Over the past ten years Premier Skills has had great success in Egypt, a country that has been involved in the programme since we launched in 2007. It is fantastic to have locally trained Premier Skills Coach Educators here in Cairo delivering the course to this new cohort of aspiring coaches. I am sure this next course will create a large number of new coaches across the regions, who will go on to make a major difference to the lives of young people around them.”
Jeff Streeter, Director British Council Egypt, said: “We believe that empowerment through sports is a creative way to help people – whether young or old – to learn the skills needed to thrive in society. In Egypt, the British Council focusses on working with women and girls in order to empower them with the leadership, communication, and sports skills that will help them with the challenges they face in daily life”.
Premier Skills was launched in 2007 and there are some fantastic success stories from the project, including Premier Skills participants who have gone on to run their own community football programmes, volunteers who now help deliver Premier Skills itself, and coaches who have connected via the project and now run community sport festivals. In total, 17,715 coaches and referees have taken part, and 6,000 teachers have gone through training to utilise the free English language learning resources. The programme has created opportunities for 1.5 million young people in 29 countries.