The Albion Foundation hosted a Premier League Inspires International Women’s Day workshop day at The Hawthorns on Wednesday.
Around 25 students from local secondary schools Holly Lodge and Sandwell Academy were invited down to the Shrine to enjoy a day of female empowerment, and having their horizons broadened by plenty of women who have forged successful careers in football.
Students participated in a scavenger hunt around the stadium, and were given the opportunity to create a social action project based around International Women’s Day.
Premier League Inspires Mentor Ella Montgomery said: “Today we’ve had 25 students come from secondary school and sixth forms from Holly Lodge and Sandwell Academy, and they’ve come across to the stadium to learn about female accessibility in sport. They’ve had to create their own campaign to raise awareness.
“We’ve had everybody today, we’ve had some brilliant volunteers, people who work in back office, our delivery staff. We’ve had senior members of staff come in and visit us, they’ve been around the different groups and talked to them about their journey, their experiences both as women but also employees.
“We’ve had some people from the club volunteer their time, we’ve had members of staff from hospitality and venue management, they’ve also come and spoken to the young people about themselves and their journey.
“It’s been brilliant, it’s been such a warm environment, the whole thing. They were coming up with really interesting ideas and conversations about womanhood and girlhood, and what those things mean to young people now, compared to what they meant to us when we were growing up, and the older generations as well – they came up with some brilliant ideas.
“I think people always come back at you and they’ll say we don’t need International Women’s Day, but the smiles on those girls’ faces, the engagement, the amount of them that wanted email addresses and information, tells me all I need to know. This is what they need, they need to know that there are women out there doing the things that they might want to do, so they can have the role models that the generation before never had.”
Premier League Inspires is a personal development programme, funded by the Premier League and Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) through the Premier League Charitable Fund.
The programme uses the power of football to inspire young people aged 11-to-18 to develop the personal skills and positive attitudes needed to succeed in life.
International Women's Day event at The Hawthorns.
