WSI New Generation of Game Changers

Please join us at the webinar on "WSI New Generation of Game Changers". We are highlighting the upcoming WSI members and their initiatives/projects to promote women in sport!

Date: Saturday, March 19

Time: 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm CET

Format: Presentation, Q & A, and discussion

Language: English (Closed Captions available in English)

Speakers:

• Maka Chikowero (WSI & MTC Educate A Girl Inc)
• Aya Noguchi (WSI & S.C.P. Japan)
• Peri Sheinin (WSI & WHSV Sport Anchor/Reporter)
• Marika Fukuta & Ayako Takematsu (WSI & The Japanese Bridge Women's Soccer program)

Maka is the founder and president of MTC Educate A Girl Inc, a high school student, an athlete, a member of the UN Generation Equality Youth Task Force adolescent girls leaders, and the immediate past president of the Rozaria Memorial Trust girls clubs of North America. Maka has received several awards in Zimbabwe and the USA. Among other honors was being nominated for the prestigious international children’s peace prize award in 2020. Her organization, MTC Educate A Girl Inc is a non-profit organization for girls by a girl whose main objective is to empower girls and young women in rural and peri-urban areas to support girls’ education, fight the scourge of child marriages, challenge harmful gender stereotypes, groom women leaders and level gender inequalities. MTC Educate A Girl Inc fosters volunteerism, advocacy, and community activism. It is dedicated to supporting orphaned girls and those from low-income and rural areas of Zimbabwe to stay in school, play a sport, learn some entrepreneurial skills and fight period poverty. It provides educational scholarships, school uniforms, school supplies and sanitary products to ease the educational experience of its beneficiaries. It also provides sports equipment to enable hundreds of girls in rural Zimbabwe to play a sport, especially soccer, which remains largely male-dominated. Maka, through her organization, to date, has provided sports bras and soccer equipment to several girls’ soccer teams in communities and via schools. Her organization sponsors MTC Sirens, a community-based girls soccer club that uses women coaches, a hugely popular model that Maka’s organization now reproduces across more villages. MTC Sirens soccer club reaches hundreds of girls through weekly training sessions, regular soccer matches as well as all-girls soccer tournaments. The club also provides psycho-social support to marginalized girls, survivors of child marriages and invites career mentors, community health workers and law enforcement agents to speak on issues surrounding SRHR, abuse and GBV.

Aya Noguchi is currently an assistant professor at Juntendo Univ. Her areas of expertise are Sport and Development and Sport and Gender and Sexuality. She was a football player in Japan, USA, and Sweden until 2014, when she finished her professional contract. After retiring, she lived in Zambia for 6 months, having practical experience tackling gender-related issues through sport. Starting in 2015, she worked for the International Affairs Division of the Japan Sports Agency (the government of Japan) for two and half years, focusing on gender and sport as well as sport for development. Besides her university job, she has done several lectures and been involved in some SDP and gender and sport projects run by NGOs or sport organizations.

Peri is the Sport Anchor and the Reporter for WHSV in Harrisonburg, VA. She joined WHSV after graduating from Brown University, where she studied English and played on the Women’s Varsity Tennis Team. She covered sports for The Brown Daily Herald and served on the Executive Board of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Over four years at Brown, Peri completed 10 internships in sports media, including recent positions at HBO and Mandalay Sports Media. Peri also spent a semester at WPRI Channel 12 in Providence, Rhode Island, where she had the privilege of covering Tom Brady’s last season with the Patriots.

Peri is the WSI Newsletter Assistant Editor and works with the WSI newsletter editor-in-chief, Lucas Aykroyd, to publish the WSI bi-monthly newsletter. She also serves as the member of the WSI Communication Committee.

Marika Fukuta studied and played women's soccer for a university in the U.S. after participating in the Bridge program U.S. tour. She became a team captain for the university team in her senior year and contributed the successful season. Marika currently works for one of the largest airline companies in Japan as an assistant manager. She supervises contracts and quality management of overseas airports. As one of the leaders for the Bridge Program in Japan, she has led several leadership and educational sessions as well as charity events for the Japanese women's soccer players.

Ayako Takematsu participated in the Bridge program U.S. tour and got inspired to get involved in promoting women in sport, particularly girls and women soccer players. After living in the U.S. and worked in the Australia, she received the A-license from the Japanese Football Association and currently works as a football (soccer) coach at the National Football Academy in Japan. She has coached Japanese girls' soccer players for over 15 years now. As one of the leaders for the Bridge Program, Ayako has also led several leadership and educational sessions as well as charity events for the Japanese women's soccer players.

WomenSport International (WSI) was formed in 1994 to meet the challenge of ensuring that sport and physical activity receive the attention and priority they deserve in the lives of women and girls. The main purpose of WSI is to serve as an umbrella organization that can bring about positive change for girls and women. Our advocacy is strongly based on current research.

Email: info@womensportinternational.org
Website: https://womensportinternational.org/
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Twitter: @WomenSportIntl