Goals for Girls returns to India for the 4th Edition of its Leadership Summit

Former US National team player Lori Lindsey is a part of the Goals for Girls Leadership Summit. Are you?

Goals for Girls will be hosting its 4th annual Goals for Girls Leadership Summit at the Jawaharlal Stadium in New Delhi January 3rd through 6th of the new year. This Leadership Summit is in partnership with the U.S. Department of State, Anglian Management Group, VCU Center for Sports Leadership, and PASS Collective. It will be led by former US Women’s National Team player Lori Lindsey. Joining Lori will be three professional women’s players and 19 teenage elite girls soccer players (ages 14-18) from Salt Lake City, Utah.

“I am incredibly excited to join the Goals for Girls Leadership Summit and to work with girl football players and grassroots coaches from across India. India’s girls' football has incredible potential and certainly a lot of growing interest after the FIFA U17 World Cup. I can’t wait to be part of the action!” - Lori Lindsey.

This Leadership Summit will include around 280 coaches and girls, including the following 14 partner organizations from 7 states and 15 cities across India: CEQUIN, CREA, Dream a Dream, Dreaming in a Slum, FC Warriors, Foot & Boot, Khel Duar, My Angels Academy, Naz Foundation, Oscar Foundation, Shining Stars FC, Slum Soccer, YFC Rurka Kalan, Yuwa.

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The Goals for Girls Leadership Summit unites grassroots football programs to collaborate, network and learn from one another for leadership development of young women through football. The Summit is an incubation platform for both girls players and coaches, reinforcing skills that will help all of us be more impactful leaders in our organizations and communities. Goals for Girls participants go through both field and classroom-based learning on leadership components of awareness, teamwork, communication and goal setting. Alongside the girls’ training, Goals for Girls conducts train-the-trainer modules with the sport for development coaches to equip them with tools to be more effective leaders. Throughout the Summit, many cultural exchanges occur between India and the U.S. teams.

A key takeaway of the Goals for Girls Leadership Summit are “We are the Change” projects! “We Are the Change” projects are initiatives girl football teams lead on to address challenges in their community and change their surroundings for the better. Examples of last year’s change projects include creating a plastic bottle recycling program, providing positive female mentors/role models to a disadvantaged school, community marches advocating against domestic violence, bringing public toilets to community football pitches, developing a girl-led campaign against child marriage, and much more.

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Looking ahead, twenty-five girls and coaches who participate in the upcoming Goals for Girls Leadership Summit 2018 will be selected to travel to Salt Lake City, Utah in late June of 2018 for the ENVEST (Empowering New Voices through Education and Sports Training) two-way exchange program. The US soccer team in India is part one of this exchange. The grant is in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for Sports Leadership, who has selected Goals for Girls as an official partner.  ENVEST is funded by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs through their Sports Diplomacy division.

Sports Diplomacy Division program officer, Ryan Murphy, shares, “This program focuses on women’s empowerment and the impact that sport can have on girls in India. We are excited to be working with Goals for Girls and Virginia Commonwealth University to implement the ENVEST program and increase mutual understanding between people of the United States and people of South and Central Asia .”