Candace Hanchell graduates from FIFA’s Female Leadership Development Programme
The FIFA Female Leadership Development Programme (FLDP) is an initiative that identifies, supports and develops strong female leaders, a part of FIFA’s commitment to its ten key development principles for women’s football. Candace Hanchell, TCIFA Executive Director with responsibility for Women’s Football, was selected as one of the thirty-five participants from the six FIFA confederations to attend its second edition. The FLDP is ran in partnership with THNK School of Creative Leaders which takes participants through a series of workshops, practical sessions and extensive field work. Each participant is paired with a mentor to guide them through the development of a personal project, translating into tangible benefits for girls and women’s football.
The course was implemented in three modules and ran over a course of nine months: the first and second modules took place in Zurich, Switzerland at the FIFA Headquaters during June 6th-9th and September 5th-8th, 2016 respectively. The third and final module which took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands at the THNK Center came to an end on February 9th, 2017.
Hanchell stated "it was a pleasure being mentored by Mrs. Yolanda Kortman and having Sarah Murray as my Accelerator Coach and Debra Shaw as my Peer Coach. It was truly an awesome experience, and I look forward to continuing these fruitful relationships. I am excited about the new perspectives of football that were brought front and center by all of the participants. The network that we have build is in itself a positive and empowering tool. I look forward to the day when the norm is simply to have an unlimited amount of females sit on Football Executive Boards who are empowered by mandated voting rights. I am positive that the FLDP, my fellow colleagues and I will be the driving force for this complete empowerment.”
Birthing from the FLDP will be Hanchell’s accelerator project - the “Empower Me” U15 girls league, correlating with educational and career workshops. TCIFA anticipates supporting the project’s implementation.