Premier League Changemakers Programme Sees First ‘Make A Change’ Day
- Premier League Changemakers aims to empower and inspire young females, whilst developing their leadership qualities
- Pupils from Soar Valley College and Castle Mead Academy joined Leicester City in the Community for the first ‘Make A Change’ day
- They discussed inspirational females and planned a social action project surrounding period poverty
- The programme will continue during term-time and the school holidays
Girls from local secondary schools joined the Club's charitable arm for the female leadership programme, which is funded by the Premier League Charitable Fund (PLCF), Sport Relief, and delivered through the Premier League Inspires programme.
PL Changemakers aims to support girls and young women by inspiring and empowering them, as well as promoting positive attitudes towards leadership.
The first ‘Make A Change’ day saw girls from Leicester City in the Community partner schools, Soar Valley College and Castle Mead Academy, join together for the first time on Filbert Way to take in a day of activities.
Inspires Coordinator, Zoe Buller, discussed the purpose of the collaborative event.
“Participants get to meet each other from different schools, and hopefully from different year groups,” Zoe explained. “They were able to inspire each other, share ideas and ultimately push each other along; it was really good to see.”
The day began with a teleconference with members of the HerGameToo campaign, in which pupils were able to ask questions to inspirational women first-hand.
This kickstarted the morning activities of discussing different role models and the attributes that they share, as well as discussing the qualities that each participant themselves had to make them role models and show how they can lead by example.
Using that inspiration, participants were then able to develop their own social action project surrounding the topic of period poverty, where they each wrote a letter to a supermarket to campaign for donations of sanitary products for their schools, as well as making social media posts and TikToks to raise awareness.
Jessica, a Year 10 pupil from Castle Mead Academy, reflected on a busy day.
“I’ve found it really fun and managed to talk to people I haven’t really talked to in school and people I haven’t known from different schools too,” she said.
“We should always try and be the best person we can; we need to let people inspire us and we need to take attributes from those people. It gives us something to look up to, and a goal to work towards and try hard to achieve.”
Moving forward, young women who are part of the PL Changemaker programme will continue their work with Leicester City in the Community in their respective schools.
They will reconvene together during school holidays, in which they will have another chance to connect with other schools for another ‘Make A Change’ day.
Watch the first ‘Make A Change’ day HERE. To find out more information about the Premier League Changemaker programme, contact EDI Coordinator, Eve Ralph on eve.ralph@lcfc.co.uk.