Fifteen new volunteers include eleven females and four males underwent training in the Just Play Health and WASH curriculum during a two-day training course at the Vava’u football office in Makave last week.
This is to equipped volunteers with the right methods and knowledge of delivering sixteen session in sixteen weeks to fifteen communities in the Island of Vava’u.
Vava’u is the first Island in Tonga to start with this training program.
This training was conducted by the Just Play Master Instructor Lafaele Moala and the Development Officer/Futsal Instructor, Manu Tu’alau.
Officer in Charge of Vava’u Football Association, Manatu Liava’a attended as the Guest of Honor with an opening remark and emphasized the importance of the program messages, which is Health and WASH.
“The participants will learn the eight steps of washing hands which is always an important health message to share especially now with COVID-19,” Liava’a said.
The course starts with training theory through group work and topics are based on social challenges, skills/attributes, support systems and the power of sports. They ended with a practical session based on the basic skills in futsal.
Moala said, overall, the two days were well spent with participants very engaged with all aspects of the training.
“There were a lot of good discussions during the theory sessions coming from he points of views of the participants. The futsal training practical sessions were quite new to them but the Just Play Programme sees it as a way of promoting football and they all seemed to enjoy it.”
Just Play is planning to run a futsal tournament in Vava’u for the U-8 and U-12 age categories. The purpose of the tournament is to promote football through introducing futsal to the island. This will run in 8 weeks and each week will have a theme based on the sessions run in the communities.
“We have introduced the same tournament in the past for the same age groups to promote the game and also to motivate volunteers and children to run their weekly sessions. We also allow volunteers and the technical staff to run at least a day of technical skills for the communities involved and that way both social messages and skills delivered in one time”, clarify by Head of Social Responsibility and JPPM Ms Palu Uhatahi-Tuamoheloa.
End.
