Get Into Rugby PLUS Program Charts Ambitious Goals for 2024 After Winning Global Leaders Sports Award in 2023

After a successful finish to 2023, the Get Into Rugby PLUS program has outlined its ambitious plans and objectives for the upcoming 2024 season.

This sports for development program, which integrates life skills education with rugby, aims to foster positive behavior, promote gender equality, and combat violence.

This program is jointly developed by Oceania Rugby, Child Fund Rugby, UN Women and Fiji Rugby.

Since its inception in 2018, the program has seen a significant change and has made a positive impact on young players.

National Coordinator Oripa Lee said, “We notice how our participants (young girls and boys) are proactively promoting gender equality and acquiring great knowledge in values which help them in their day to day lives.”

“Using rugby as a tool to drive these values has been a great motivating factor as these young players also love to learn and play rugby,” Lee added.

Marking the end of 2023 on a high note, the program clinched the 2023 Global Leaders Sports Award, providing a morale boost to coaches and members as they gear up for the new year.

“In 2024 we want to continue working together and we want to retain our coaches as well as recruiting more coaches.”

“There are a lot of changes that we want to make and make sure that we fill in the gaps to ensure our players and young participants are supported and guided through the values and through rugby,” Lee said.

The GIR PLUS program currently looks after 31 schools including two communities based in the west.

“We have 48 active coaches with more than 1000 players so you can see how empowering this program is and we want to build on this,” said Lee.