After reaching over 7000 children in 82 schools through a year of successful launches and workshops, the Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF) is turning its Just Play attention to strengthening the programme’s foundations in its partner schools and communities for the benefit of a longer-term existence.
“The next phase will be about increasing the capacity of schools and communities to implement and manage Just Play as a long-term sports programme,” SIFF special projects manager Phillip Ohoto’ona says.
“We feel the full potential for Just Play needs to be reached in each school or community and we want to achieve that before moving out to new areas.
“Our experience from the past year suggests we need to shift our focus to delivering more in terms of quality so all participating schools and communities can fully benefit.
“This means we need to train more Just Play instructors and build a closer relationship with them.”
The new approach is based on the outcomes of the Just Play managers’ seminar held at OFC headquarters in Auckland in June which, amongst other things, raised the issue of instructor-to-student ratio and distribution of teachers. It was proposed that Just Play project managers across OFC’s member associations would work closely with their existing partner schools for the second stage to develop an effective delivery method for their students and ensure the training delivered is of a high standard.
Ohoto’ona says the objective for SIFF in the second year is to re-engage the 82 partner schools and increase the number of other participating communities to four. An additional 248 instructors will also be trained, requiring 10 training workshops to be held for the four regions participating in the programme between now and June next year.
The second stage will kick-off in Honiara on August 22 with the training of 60 teachers and community volunteers over a week-long workshop.
The new focus on community volunteers is centred around the strong link between schools and communities in Solomon Islands. It is hoped that having community-based volunteers involved will be of benefit to the long-term development of Just Play in the partner regions.
“Just Play is an exciting programme because it has been well accepted,” Ohoto’ona says. “We are committed to repeating the success of last year in the coming one – it will be a lot of work but we have a team in place that is prepared and committed.”
Just Play is designed for children aged six to 12 and is based around structured activity programmes as well as the distribution of equipment packs containing balls, cones, bibs, activity manuals and other resources that enable children to play football.
Developed by the OFC social responsibility and technical departments, Just Play was launched in Tonga and has since been introduced in Vanuatu, Tahiti, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and South Auckland in New Zealand.
OFC is also currently working in New Zealand with Special Olympics (NZ) on a Just Play programme for people with mental disabilities.
OFC is working closely with UEFA, the Government of Australia – through its agencies the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) – and Football Federation Australia (FFA) to roll out the programme across the Pacific. The Australian Government has shown its support to the project by contributing AU$4million.
In South Auckland, Just Play is supported by OFC’s partnership with the Sir John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation, Counties Manukau Sport and Auckland Football Federation.
For more on Solomon Islands football go to www.siff.com.sb

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