The growth of rugby in the UAE among local children continues following the delivery of 800 balls to various schools in the country.
The UAE Rugby Federation’s Impact Beyond project gains more momentum as the federation and the Ministry of Education (MoE) strengthen their partnership, which will allow the sport to reach more school-aged Emirati children.
This bond has been strengthened through the collaboration for the federation’s Get Into Rugby initiative and highly successful Player Pathway Programme (PPP), supported by HSBC, which has been introduced into the school sports curriculum for Cycles 4 through 11.
Previously, the GIR programme was delivered to girls and boys in Cycles 9 through 11 with the 2017/2018 season seeing an impressive 17,000 girls and 13,000 boys introduced to the game in Emirati schools across the UAE.
“We are extremely pleased to have achieved this season’s performance goals as set by our board and the ministry” said Salman Hady, vice
chairman of the UAE RF and chairman of the development committee.
“It is incredibly rewarding for us to see the number of Emirati girls and boys participating in and enjoying our sport, and we are delighted to be able to take the game into five additional cycles.
“We extend our sincere gratitude to both the ministry and to HSBC whose support and commitment has made this possible.”
The federation recently presented the MoE with 800 rugby balls to be used in next season’s PPP. The handover of the balls was made at the MoE offices and was attended by Hady, UAE RF CEO Hamdan Suliman; rugby development manager Sami Smara, MoE director of health and physical fitness Aisha Al Siri, Ahmed Abdulrahman of the MoE’s schools sports department and Peter Moore, programme manager for physical and health education.
