The official kick-off of the Shiraka Programme took place at City Club in Aswan in presence of Wierish Ramsoekh, Charge d’affaires of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Egypt and the Dutch football legend Aron Winter.
WorldCoaches is the international social programme of the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB). The KNVB WorldCoaches – Shiraka Programme is an initiative funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and is implemented in six countries in the MENA region, including Egypt. The goal of the WorldCoaches Shiraka programme is to improve the economic perspective for youth through helping them in their personal development, so that they have a bigger chance at finding employment. This is done by educating them to become World Coaches, who organize football matches and life skills sessions for children in their communities. In Egypt, 100 World Coaches in the age of 18-30 years old will be trained and 3500 teenagers between the ages of 10-18 years will develop life skills and are guided on a structural basis by a WorldCoach in Egypt.
“The Embassy of the Netherlands in Egypt is proud to support the Youth Employability, Leadership and Participation (YELP) programme in partnership with the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) for the implementation of its new edition from April, 2022 to March, 2025. The programme helps youth to develop essential employability and life skills through sports framework”, stated Mr. Wierish Ramsoekh, Charge d’affaires of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Egypt. He continued “By the end of this project, we hope that young Egyptian men and women are able to benefit from the programme and are able to create better economic opportunities for themselves that reflects on the quality of their lives and society in general.”
The event started with a youth tournament that is organized by the new local World Coaches. Together, they organized a football tournament for approximately 50 youths, who were playing simultaneously. An exhibition match was played with players of various stakeholders involved in the programme. Lastly, the day concluded with a certificate ceremony for the newly trained World Coaches that completed their first level in the WorldCoaches education.
“I am happy to be involved in the WorldCoaches project in Egypt because I believe football is a great tool to learn important life skills. Training youth to utilise the power of football greatly contributes to their personal development and the football and life skills activities that they organise speak to children in a way that little else does,” said Aron Winter – KNVB WorldCoaches Ambassador
