Week 2 of Skillz Street

Week two of Skillz Street saw 91 girls making it back excited to continue participating in this exciting new after school program at Molefe primary school in New Brighton township. Skillz Street has drawn girls aged between 10 and 15 from the surrounding community. Tuesday was a particularly rainy day, so we couldn’t play football as normal. Team pictures were the order of the day. 

Every participant in Skillz Street gets what is known as a Skillz Street album, which works as a work book for different sessions. At the end of the program girls get to keep these. On Tuesday I had the task of taking individual and team pictures  of all the girls – each girl would get an individual picture and one with their fellow team mates. Needless to say, the girls were very excited about the picture taking process, some were more into the camera shots than others, but the excitement was universal.  The team photos in the post below are a testament to the spirit and genuine enthusiasm that exists at Skillz Street.

Thursday – After developing pictures the day before, Thursday was when the young ladies received their 2 pictures. Each coach had the task of handing these out to their teams and the joy on the kids’ faces truly warmed my heart. I was happy to be involved in helping create such camaraderie among the girls and the coaches. The main activity for Thursday was Community mapping – an activity where the girls get to use their workbooks. Community mapping involves drawing a basic map of one’s surrounding community with their house in the middle. Coaches came prepared, with examples of their own Community maps to show the girls. As is common with this sort of activity the girls dug into their workbooks – happily drawing, coloring and perfecting their versions of the Community map. Community maps are also designed to help girls identify safe and unsafe places in their community. The overarching message of the activity being that the girls should avoid unsafe places in their community and being aware of safe places  that they can make use of.

A sunny day also meant that we were able to play some football – which the girls were happy to do. It was a special day once again at Skillz Street – watching all female coaches mentoring 91 females was fascinating to observe. One can never put a price on the impact of our programs – today the spirit and the positive vibe at Molefe was tangible. Girls were happy to be there, and coaches seemed aware of the special position they hold in the lives of these young girls – at least at this moment in time.