Old Haileybury FC is stepping up their game!

The Old Haileybury Football Club has accomplished a milestone by becoming the first ‘Women and Girl Chartered Club’ in the VAFA community. This achievement demonstrates the club’s dedication to establishing a welcoming, safe, and inclusive environment for women and girls. The VAFA management extends its congratulations to the club for taking proactive steps to enhance participation in the Women & Girl space.

The AFL Victoria Women & Girls Charter Program is a commitment from community football leagues, clubs, and umpires’ groups to create welcoming, safe, and inclusive environments for women and girls in community football. Once a club is recognised as an AFL W&G Chartered Club, they will have added advantage for AFL Victoria’s W&G grants, fair access policies, recognition on AFL websites etc.

Additionally, one of the four values of the VAFA is inclusivity, and the VAFA management makes every effort to support clubs in creating safe and inclusive environments for women and girls.

The VAFA reached out to Lisa Biffin, Women’s Football Coordinator from Old Haileybury FC, and this is what Lisa had to share regarding the W&G charter:

“The women’s football program is the newest area of our club, and we believed that seeking accreditation would help to develop and progress this aspect of our club, as well as attract and encourage women to join. The committee had discussions at various levels, including consultation, conversation, and feedback from leadership groups within the club. The entire process took around 10 hours, involving committee meetings, discussions with leadership groups, completion of the application, and setting tasks required to achieve our goals. Our objectives include developing our coaches, recruiting, collaborating with our school football program, promoting our focus on inclusion and the development of young footballers, and maintaining strong relationships with all community members associated with our club.”

If you or your club is interested in the program, please reach out to Pranav Menon, Club Support Coordinator at [email protected].