On the 29th-30th of January, together with partners from Italy, Uruguay, Bulgaria, and Hungary, Active Youth (Lithuania) implemented the first Women Football Campaign in Budapest, Hungary. Together with our partners, we are promoting WOMEN’S FOOTBALL and helping to develop training skills for women football coaches around the globe.

Female coaches started international cooperation for further networking, visited Ferencváros stadium and learned best training practices including football marketing campaign, coaching training skills, sports psychology workshop.

The second WFC was held in Uruguay, the participants had an opportunity to get to know each other even better and meet with the Uruguayan women’s football players as well as discuss differences and similarities in women’s football in Europe and Latin America.

Later on, the coaches went to see a beasal competition on the beach. The participants had an opportunity to talk to Lourdes Viana, captain of the Peñarol team. Besides, during the workshop the coaches from different countries of the consortium formed mixed teams and developed a technical strategy for the OG championship. A friendly tournament “Championship” was also held at the end of the visit.

The third WFC was held in Italy, where participants visited the Italian partner’s – CEIPES headquarters where they demonstrated a project presentation and outcomes of the research. Besides, local representatives of AC PALERMO CALCIO and sport experts gave speeches on women’s football in Italy.

The following day the participants had trust building games and visited Palermo’s where they held a warmup session for the city’s girls’ team. Participants gathered knowledge about relations between coaches and football players: the role of communication skills – theoretical and practical session from Francesca Chiarenza – communication manager and expert.

Participants also learned about the role of women in football: how to fight prejudices and stereotypes. Finally, Project managers collected feedback from the first One Goal local training.

The fourth WFC was held in Bulgaria, where participants visited the National Sports Academy “Vassil Levski”. The academy students can do over 70 different kinds of sports there and many academy’s athletes go as far as the Olympics. The coaches were able to give training to girls’ and women’s football teams as well as have an opportunity to meet Bulgaria’s best female footballers. The academy’s teachers gave lectures on motor skills. Besides, the coaches visited the newly built training center where footballers from all over the world come for sports camps.

The fifth WFC and final Conference was held in Lithuania. The final WFC was connected with the Final conference since they both fell in the same country. During the WFC in Kaunas, Lithuania the participants had a chance to visit Kaunas training center and see the women’s’ national team’s testing process. Also, the coaches visited the newly reconstructed stadium, the first in Lithuania that abides to FIFA regulations, has around 15000 seats and has a real grass field.

Besides, the physiotherapist Mindaugas Šilkus gave a theoretical and practical lesson on injury prevention in women’s’ football. On the final conference day, the former general director of Lithuania’s women football federation Vilma Zurzė gave a lecture on women’s football history and current situation in Lithuania, as well as FIFA referee Ugnė Šmitaitė shared her experience on becoming a referee and staying in football even after she was not able to play professionally anymore.

15 free Local Training Courses (LTC) (3 per country, each one held simultaneously in all countries) for 12 local women coaches/LTC, passing them the knowledge acquired by coaches in the WFC. They consisted of both theoretical and practical parts based on the WFC. This ensured for more coaches to have the possibility to improve their competencies in training football. LTC were planned in cooperation with NGOs and all women coaches (who take part in WFC) during meetings. This helped coaches consolidate knowledge, improve leadership skills, create an environment to increase the competences of other women in football (coaches, volunteers). By cooperating with other coaches and holding public events, they might have become role models to the ones who lack good examples & encouragement to pursue a career in sports/playing sports (research showed that women lack role models – successful women in sports & coaching).