The Diamond Trading Company Botswana (DTCB) and Botswana Football Association (BFA) hosted the first girls specific football festival in Jwaneng Township this past weekend. The festival follows a P150,000 sponsorship agreement between the two organizations to support grassroots training programmes across all the 17 regions of the BFA country-wide. The football extravaganza brought together over forty participants in Jwaneng and surrounding communities with a view to introduce as many young girls (six to twelve years) as possible to football through playing five aside and conducting workshops on life and antidoping skills.  Speaking after the festival, DTCB’s Corporate Affairs and Social Performance Manager Mr. Kago Mmopi lauded the event as a resounding success that incredibly resonated with the company’s sustainability agenda. “The main aim of the DTCB’s sponsorship is to directly promote gender equality and parity through football. This partnership further underpins our ambitions as DTC Botswana to achieve inclusion and diversity as a company and ultimately in the society,” Mmopi said. He also highlighted that the sponsorship is not just about financial assistance, but part of a broader framework to ignite interest in female football and strategically identify talent at a very youthful age.

For her part, BFA Women’s Football Manager Ms. Tsholofelo Setlhoko said the partnership with the DTCB will allow the Association to develop girls’ specific grassroots centers that will feed youth teams at regional level and increase girls mass production in football. She further stated that other football festivals will be held in Phikwe Regional Football Association on the 22-21 May 2022 before concluding in the Francistown Regional Football Association between 12-13 August 2022. Each region will have a team of dedicated trained coaches and experts delivering awareness trainings on life skills and antidoping.