How PL Kicks is making Jasmine’s voice heard

How PL Kicks is making Jasmine’s voice heard

Over the last five years, Jasmine Amin has been transformed from someone who was timid to a leader and aspiring coach who is acting as a mentor to young women. And it’s all thanks to the help of the Chelsea Foundation and the Premier League Kicks programme.

“Before I was involved in Kicks, I was quite shy,” Jasmine says. “I felt that everything just came to a person and they didn’t really have to work for anything or put themselves out there.

“But that’s all changed.”

Leadership and mentoring

Part of the reason Jasmine lacked confidence was that when she started on Chelsea‘s Premier League Kicks programme, where young people can play football for free and learn other skills, not many of her peers at school had an interest in football.

With the support and encouragement of the Chelsea Foundation coaches, she developed her confidence to the point where she is now a leader at the sessions and is a mentor for the younger and female participants.

“I am quite interested in coaching, so the PL Kicks sessions really opened up a network of people that I could speak to about that,” she says. “I am now doing my FA Level 1 coaching badge.

“Chelsea have definitely helped me get there. There’s been that support and encouragement that I needed to do it.”

This week Jasmine and her colleagues will be able to showcase her progress at the Premier League Youth Summit, a one-day event involving 49 clubs that recognises and celebrates the almost 1,000 young people participating in Premier League programmes.

The event will be an opportunity for young people to share their experiences and ideas to bring positive change to their communities.

Participants like Jasmine from each club have been working on themes such as how the PL Kicks and PL Inspires programmes can be improved, as well as ideas to make their communities safer.

“If you had met me two years ago, I would have never done anything like this, so it’s really cool,” Jasmine says. “I’ve gained much more maturity.

“If I didn’t have the support from Premier League Kicks, it would be quite difficult. You can feel when someone really cares, and when an organisation like this really puts in the time and effort into each person you know that there’s going to be more out of it.

“They make it quite focused and that helps me excel in my everyday life really.”