Expanding Youth Horizons in Brazil Through Rugby

Wedja, 19, was a student during rugby classes at the Rinos Diadema City team and in 2017 received the opportunity to work as an intern in ACER's sports department until the end of 2019. In addition, she also participated of championships with the Rinos, and she tells us a little of how it positively impacted her life:

“Rugby was a new experience for me, something I had not experienced before. So it was very different, because I had a sense of what football was, but when I met Rugby I saw that it is totally different. I was very scared, but after I started practicing I was able to visit new places because I had championships far from here so I had to go play, I met a lot of people, I also met the Brazilian Women's Rugby Team at NAR (High Performance Sports Center) which is where they train, I watched professional Rugby games, after all, after starting to play rugby my life has changed a lot. And I can pass this on to the children I used to train, even though I didn't work much with rugby, it was more with futsal, but at times I managed to pass some activities on to them and it was very good too. And to this day, I still have a little fear of the physicality of rugby, but it is good to play and I am really missing it. I also participated in a championship in the São Paulo State team and it was very good, even though we didn't get the hoped for result, even so it was very good for all the experience and all the conviviality, for having met people from other states like Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul amongst others. So it brought something very good to my life, new experiences, new people, new learnings and also the respect and all the other meanings that rugby brings to me, because even though it is a competition we know how to respect others ”.

And earlier this year, Wedja returned to be part of the ACER sports department, now as a female futsal teacher and she tells us how rugby helped her professional growth, her expectations and how it feels to be part of ACER once again:

“To this day, I take all the values of rugby with me: love, which is the love of the team, the players and the coaches so that's why I continue my life having love for the things I do, for the people who care about me and who I care about. Living responsibly by having responsibility with the games, with your team and with your coaches is something very important too, and that until today I have been keeping with me, I already had responsibility before but rugby brought me a very different view: that responsibility is something that you have to prioritize a lot in your life. And the other concept is respect, that is with everyone, even if rugby is a sport, let's say an aggressive one, respect was not lacking. There was no lack of respect for the referee, respect for the opponent even though we were there to win the game, but always respecting others. I still have this with me, I respect all the people around me very much, even those who do not deserve it, but it is something to be human, to have respect. And to this day, I take all these vlaues with me, all these teachings and learnings, even though I stopped playing rugby for a while, but it is still part of my life, because it was for a long time, for two or three years, so it’s something that I’ll always take with me. I will never forget that and wherever I go, I will say that I played rugby ”