Premier Skills is taking place in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, with intensive training for 48 grassroots football coaches selected from across Ethiopia.
The project is being led by head coach Fraser Foster, previously Community Director at West Bromwich Albion Football Club. He is supported by Paul Clements, Craig Pearce and Jack Day, coaches from Middlesbrough, Portsmouth and Stoke City Football Clubs respectively. All of the coaches involved in Premier Skills are UEFA qualified coaches, with Clements a goalkeeping coach who will run a two-day course after Premier Skills for aspiring goalkeepers.
Running alongside the coach programme is a new 'Introduction to Refereeing' course, which focuses on teaching twenty representatives of community organisations the rules of football and basics of refereeing. The course is being led by former General Manager of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited, Keith Hackett, and assisted by former professional referee, Paul Rejer.
The courses in Addis Ababa are being jointly organised by the British Council, Premier League, the Addis Ababa Sport Commission, the Ethiopian Football Federation, Right to Play and Plan International.
Premier Skills, which started in 2007, has successfully run in 22 different centres in 15 countries worldwide. In Africa, training courses have taken place in ten other countries: Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda.
Premier Skills has achieved huge impact under the first stage of the programme. It has trained 1,000 new community football coaches who, evaluation of their activities have revealed, have gone on to work with nearly 300,000 young people since their Premier Skills training.
Premier League Chairman Sir Dave Richards said: "I have been fortunate enough to visit Ethiopia and was thrilled to discover how much football, and the Barclays Premier League, is a part of people's lives. I am confident that Premier Skills will have a significant impact in Ethiopia, improving the quality of football coaching and refereeing in the country. It will also give these talented young Ethiopian coaches a greater understanding of how to use sport as a tool to tackle other social issues, like improving people's education and health, and bringing together different communities.
"The Premier League and our Clubs have a long-held commitment and reputation for delivering high quality community programmes across the UK. Premier Skills has a great track record for replicating this work around the world, particularly in Africa, and I am sure it will have a similar effect in Ethiopia."
British Council Chief Executive Martin Davidson said: "Our purpose is to connect people in the UK to people in other countries and football is a great way to do that. We are therefore proud of Premier Skills, our partnership with the Premier League and I am delighted that this unique project, which combines English and football - two truly universal languages, has arrived in Ethiopia."
Alongside the coach and referee courses, Premier Skills also helps teachers and learners of English around the world, with over one million football-focused English language materials distributed globally through the project. Harnessing the huge global interest in the Premier League, the British Council has created a range of football-based materials that include a dedicated Premier Skills website: www.britishcouncil.org/premierskills.
This website features downloadable resources for teachers and learners, and the first components of a Premier Skills self-access schools pack, providing materials for teachers and learners of English. These will enable people around the world to develop and build upon their English language skills. The resources also use the motivational power of football to develop classroom materials that allow teachers and learners to explore key social issues such as health and social inclusion.
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