Derby County Community Trust is delighted to be participating in the Premier League Changemakers programme, helping to inspire and empower young women from across the region.

The ten-week project sees the Trust working with around fifty teenage girls from school years seven to nine, using the power of football and sport to help them to develop leadership skills, personal skills, and self-awareness around gender equality.

Zack Yates, PL Kicks Coordinator, said “We’ve seen a great response to the project so far with the girls really eager to develop their leadership skills.

“In every session we do, we’re designing lateral thinking activities to help the girls improve their communication and giving them the opportunity to lead on activities.

“Our session at Littleover Community School works with around thirty year eight girls and they’ve taken on responsibility to each week, have a small sided tournament where they’ll act as referee’s and scorers – collating data on goals scored and updating league tables.

“I’m delighted by the response so far with the response, we’ve had lots of open and honest conversations about gender equality in sport and already you can see that the girls are keen to make an impact, whether that be taking charge of their own sessions, or looking to volunteer through our PL Kicks programme”.