The Kōtiro Festival, held earlier this month, provided tamariki with the opportunity to try out a diverse range of sport and recreational activities to encourage a love of being active.

Around 60 girls from a number of West Auckland Whau schools spent the day at Te Atatū Community Centre skateboarding, playing cricket and football, as well as giving gymnastics and dancing a go.

Katie Dobson, School Strategy Lead and Women and Girls Lead at Sport Waitākere, said the day provided opportunities to experience something new while being in a supportive, inclusive and fun environment.

“The old adage ‘you don’t know until you try’ holds true and we’ve seen so many children taking up a new activity that they’ve found they loved,” says Katie.

“We aimed to instil confidence in the girls to try something new without fear of judgement or failure, empowering them to have fun and be active with friends.”

The day started with a discussion around failure and the importance of giving things a go. 

“Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is essential for personal growth.  It challenges you to learn, adapt and develop new skills and experiences.  Accepting failure as a positive that leads to building resilience is something every child needs to learn,” continued Katie.

The girls were given goody bags to take home and information about local clubs that they could try out and the Tania Dalton Foundation donated netball balls to all the girls.

Feedback from those attending reinforced the many benefits the event delivered.  “It was a great opportunity to try different things,” said one participant.

"This is the best event I've ever experienced, I really hope other girls get to experience this festival" and "Thankyou so much for having us, we had lots of fun playing all the different sports and games" were comments from other girls attending the festival.

Katie said there is a need to offer more female-only activities to encourage higher rates of attendance among girls and young women.

“Not all girls are comfortable participating in a mixed environment. Schools will hopefully take away from the day the importance of structuring sessions that encourage girls to feel more confident and safe to give something a go and maybe even discover a new passion,” concluded Katie.

The event was funded by Tū Manawa Active Aotearoa and kindly supported by Girls Skate, Auckland Cricket, Northern Football Federation, Waitakere Gymnastics and Notorious Dance Clinic.

Article added: Monday 04 December 2023