The Scottish football partnership trust – GoFitba project

Partner: Scottish Football Partnership Trust

Context

The GoFitba project invests in young, vulnerable primary schoolchildren living in poverty across deprived areas of Scotland. It aims to maximise their future prospects for health and well-being by providing free-to-access fun football activities, health education and hot, healthy meals.

Project content

GoFitba is a 12-week football-based health and well-being project that provides opportunities for Scotland’s most disadvantaged primary schoolchildren living in poverty to take part in a free-to-access, fun sport and health education initiative delivered by partner community football clubs across the country.

GoFitba takes a holistic approach to teach children the benefits of regular physical activity within a football environment, with each structured session providing the national target of one hour of moderate physical activity each day. During the second hour of each session, the children take part in an interactive educational journey with their very own learning journal to explore the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle through diet and nutrition. The final component of each session sees the children being served a hot, healthy meal which crucially ensures the children are being fed outside school hours, helping to tackle food poverty. The project also allows these children to spend some social time with their peers in a safe environment, helping with issues of integration, social inclusion and community development with the wider family unit as parents and guardians are invited to participate in the project during week 12.

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Objectives

• To provide disadvantaged primary schoolchildren with opportunities to take part in free-to-access fun football activities.
• To educate the project participants on the importance of being active in their daily lives and to use the GoFitba football hour as a vehicle to improve their knowledge and understanding, self-esteem and confidence.
• To make use of the interactive GoFitba learning journal to educate the project participants on the importance of leading a healthier lifestyle through diet and nutrition and to increase the children’s confidence of working in groups.
• To provide each participant with a hot, healthy meal at the end of each weekly session to help reinforce their learning on diet and nutrition and to tackle food poverty by providing nutritious food outside school hours.
• To host a showcase event at the conclusion of the 12-week session for the participants and their parents/guardians and school teachers. This element of the project is geared at extending the importance of leading an active, healthy lifestyle through exercise, diet and nutrition to the wider family unit. It also helps to bring the participants, their families, school teachers and the project coaches together to strengthen the links between the local football club and the broader community.

Project activities

Hour 1 – Football and fitness session

Session structure:

• Structured warm-ups and cool-downs
• Weekly football themes – passing, dribbling, technique and control, shooting, defending and football agility
• Fun game-related activities
• Team-building and problem-solving activities focusing on improving confidence, communication, team-work, decision-making, respect for others and developing participants’ cognitive skills
• Small-sided games – fun and competitive play and freedom of expression

Hour 2 – Positive nutritional messages and healthy, hot, homemade meal

Session structure:

• The Eatwell Guide
• Food groups and their purpose
• Water and hydration
• Energy values
• Healthy cooked meal
• Personal hygiene – washing hands and table manners

Expected results

• Provide opportunities for 400 young, disadvantaged children to take part in the GoFitba project, helping them to become happier, healthier and more engaged through the delivery of 9,600 individual hours of football activity and health education
• Encouraging and enabling the inactive to be active
• Developing physical confidence and competence from the earliest age
• Improving opportunities to participate, progress and achieve in sport
• Supporting the well-being and resilience of communities through physical activity and sport
• Tackling food inequality

 Link to the project: www.gofitba.com

Partner