Thursday, 05 December 2013

 

The hugely successful Premier Skills initiative run by the Premier League and the British Council returns to Egypt next week. A new Premier Skills workshop will take place from 9-13 December 2013 at Cairo International Stadium; with intensive training for 36 grassroots football coaches from across Cairo, Alexandria, Minya, Aswan, Luxor, Assiut and Qena governorates. The workshop will be led by head coach Bob Glozier, a Youth Academy coach at West Ham United. He will be supported by Adam Cookson and Warren Leat, community coaches from Stoke City club. All of the coaches involved in Premier Skills are UEFA qualified coaches.

Jointly organised by the British Council, Premier League and Ministry of State of Sports, Premier Skills launched its first phase in Egypt 2007.  In its second phase, which began in 2010, small grants were presented to 60 coaches from Ard El Lewa, Omernya, Al Haram, Al Wara’a, Helwan, Manshiet Nasser, Azrita, and Amerya, Assuit, Qena, Aswan to initiate and develop community projects through football. 

 “At home the Premier League and our Clubs have a long-held commitment and reputation for delivering high quality community and education programmes. Given our popularity and success internationally we felt it only right to take this approach to a wider community,” said Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore. 

Premier Skills combines the reach of the British Council with the global appeal of the Premier League to use football to develop a brighter future for young people around the world. Drawing upon the Premier Leagues’ domestic expertise, it uses football to tackle a variety of social issues in the community, such as health, disability, gender, inclusion and education. 

In addition to coaching, a range of materials, including a dedicated website, have been created for teachers and learners of English that utilise football-based content and the British Council’s world-class expertise in English.

 “Our purpose is to connect people in the UK to people in other countries and football is a great way to do that,” said British Council Chief Executive, Martin Davidson.  “We are therefore proud of Premier Skills, our partnership with the Premier League, and I am delighted that the second phase of this unique project, which combines English and football – two truly universal languages – is being launched in Egypt.  This second stage of training will build upon the excellent work already done in Egypt giving the coaches further skills to use in their communities to develop community action projects."

Premier Skills has already delivered tremendous impact in 22 countries across Asia, Africa and the Americas. Since 2007 Premier Skills has created training opportunities benefitting 2,300 grassroots coaches and referees who in turn have reached more than 400,000 young people.

Under the programme 6,000 teachers have received face to face training in the use of the Premier Skills English materials, applying these in the classroom to reach thousands of pupils. In addition there have been 3.5 million views of the English materials online.

 

For further information contact:

Rose marie Gad, Communication Manager, British Council Egypt

Tel: +(202) 3344 3076

Email: Rose.Gad@Britishcouncil.org.eg 

 

 

Notes to Editor

Premier Skills is a partnership between the Premier League and the British Council which uses football as a tool to engage with and develop the skills of young people.

Since the first pilot in 2007, the project has been delivered across 20 countries: Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Korea, Sudan, Tunisia (including Libyan participants), Uganda and Vietnam.

In 2010 an enhanced coaching offer and new referee coaching element was added to the programme, as well as a new community project element based on the Premier League’s highly successful UK Kickz programme, linking UK community projects run by Premier League clubs to similar projects in other countries, building long-term partnerships that aim to change the lives of thousands of people.

The target by summer 2013 is for Premier Skills to have reached more than 500,000 young people through the coaches, and to provide access to the English language materials for millions of teachers and learners of English worldwide.

For more on Premier Skills visit http://www.britishcouncil.org/society/sport/current-programmes/premier-s...

To find out more about the football-focused English content and to view the materials online, visit http://premierskillsenglish.britishcouncil.org/

The Premier League is involved in a wide range of community projects both in the UK and overseas. For more information on these, visit: http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/creating-chances.html 

 

About the British Council

The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. We are a Royal Charter charity, established as the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. Our 7000 staff in over 100 countries work with thousands of professionals and policy makers and millions of young people every year through English, arts, education and society programmes.

 We earn over 75% of our annual turnover of £739 million from services which customers pay for, education and development contracts we bid for and from partnerships. A UK Government grant provides the remaining 25%. We match every £1 of core public funding with over £3 earned in pursuit of our charitable purpose. For more information, please visit: http://www.britishcouncil.org.eg/en. You can also keep in touch with the British Council through http://twitter.com/britishcouncil and http://blog.britishcouncil.org/.
Share this