Swansea City AFC Foundation, Swansea City and Joma celebrate International Women’s Day
Swansea City AFC Foundation, Swansea City and Joma have come together to celebrate International Women’s Day through a mother and daughter event centered around football activities.
The theme for International Women’s Day (March 8) this year is emphasising the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality.
A key element of that is increasing the opportunities for women and girls to participate in sport.
With this in mind, the Foundation, the club and Joma hosted an event which welcomed mothers and their daughters to the Joma High Performance Centre for an hour of football activities, followed by a tour and a question and answer session at the Swansea.com Stadium.
Participants were kindly gifted new training kit from Joma to recognise the importance of feeling comfortable when taking part in sport, and to help everyone feel a sense of belonging to the day.
“I think it’s great that everyone has been able to come along together as mums and daughters,” said Katy Hosford, sports and education area coordinator at Swansea City AFC Foundation.
“It’s given them a new opportunity to play football at the same time in the same place, and given some of them the chance to play football for the first time, which will hopefully open new doors for them.
“We also want to say thank you to Joma for providing the training kit for the participants. It’s really important that they get to wear good quality kit to help them enjoy the day even more.”
The Foundation’s head of health and wellbeing, Caroline Gwilym, added: “The importance of this event is to really celebrate the achievements of women and girls through sport and football.
“Physical activity is vital because of what that brings to us in our lives, how it benefits and impacts us in a positive way.”
For mother and daughter Sue and Jenni Murphy, the event offered them a unique opportunity to participate together in football activities.
“It was nice to have something where we could both participate,” said Sue.
“Normally I just coach or watch Jenni from the side, so to have the chance to do a bit of walking football and be part of the day was really good.
“Playing football is perfect for celebrating International Women’s Day. For me women’s football is one of the biggest growing sports in the world, so for us to use that to encourage women to meet other women and become friends is fantastic.”
The day was rounded off with a Q&A session at the Swansea.com Stadium, hosted by Gabriella Jukes.
The panel consisted of leading female figures including Swansea City Women’s captain Katy Hosford, Swansea City Women’s assistant manager Yzzy Taylor, Swansea City Her Game Too ambassador Sophie Hughes, former FIT Jacks participant Louise Horton, and the Foundation’s head of health and wellbeing Caroline Gwilym.
All panellists closed the day with words of encouragement, with Taylor stressing the importance of being “brave” when new opportunities arise.
“It can be quite scary when you see new opportunities or something that you haven’t tried before, but just be brave because it’ll help in the long run,” said Taylor.
“To see so many women and girls here is a great example of how we can maximise opportunities, and everyone has been so enthusiastic which is great to see.”