Black Country students from across the region take part in 2024 Black Country School Games Festival.
Express & Star visit Walsall's University of Wolverhampton campus to witness the 2024 Black Country School Games Festival.
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00:00My name is Iman, I'm 19 and I'm here from Wolverhampton Wrestling Club doing some
00:04Kabaddi coaching today and happy to be here. My name is Yashayu Malik, I am 13 I
00:10am from St James Academy, I came here to help my representative at the school at the
00:15Backcountry Games. I've been involved in Kabaddi and wrestling for the past three
00:20years now, just recently played for the British Kabaddi League as well for the
00:23women's team which was the first women's teams ever. I've been asked by my coach
00:28to come here and volunteer my time and just help out with the young people and
00:32improve them into becoming the best version of themselves and introducing
00:35new sports to them. I've come from St James, they've told me to represent the Backcountry Games, so I'm here, I like the new sports, I like how they're
00:43introducing it to new schools, some smaller sports but get recognition across the schools, I like it here.
00:50It gives me experience on how to play these new sports and how we can improve
00:54and improve our diversity of what we play. I see some young people that are not confident enough to play the game or will try and step back and not do it but I think the main thing is us as coaches, we are supposed to support them no matter what and just give them that confidence to come and play and that's why we introduce them to this, it's a new experience, it's a new game, it's a new sport. Some of them might be interested, some might not but our main reason to be here is to develop them into actually having that confidence to play and just do what they enjoy really.
01:25They encourage everyone that no matter how you play the sport, if you win or lose, you gain the experience, here it doesn't matter if you win or lose, it matters that you learn what you have during the day.
01:37I absolutely agree with him, it's all about diversity and inclusion and that's why we have these type of days to involve everyone and give them all new experience and a lot of opportunities as well, I mean just from playing this game we give a lot of opportunities for the young people to come into our club and wrestle with us and get into competitions,
01:54and perhaps a big pathway for them if they're interested.