Universiti Malaya Community Engagement Centre
UMCares Walking Football Club was our pilot project in 2017 which involved 8 schools in Petaling Jaya with the main objective to encourage overweight and obese school children to be active in sports. Walking Football is relatively, a new sport that was originally designed in the United Kingdom in 2011, to give senior citizens a second chance at enjoying the game they love so much. However, because of its gaining popularity, it has now become a growing sport, as it is a lot less rigorous than normal football, more approachable and suitable for individuals with health concerns. We found that this is a great way to let obese and overweight individuals to exercise without exerting too much pressure on their body, and it is a lot of fun as well. And this would reduce children’s screening time too.
This pilot study have shown very encouraging positive results among the participants not only in their fitness level and body measurements but also in their self-confidence and esteem among the participants. We believe that this programme will be suitable to assist communities to promote healthier lifestyle given Malaysia’s rank among the top obesity population in Asia.
Project information
Project Execution: 6 months
Location :Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur
Target Community: Overweight and obese primary school children
Numbers of Community benifited: 112 people
Collaborators: CTG (fresh fruits) and Nestle (Milo drinks)
Future Enhancement
Some teachers were not motivated to encourage their students to practice due to time and work constraints, partly the timing this programme was implemented- towards the end of the year when final examination and a lot of end of year activities at school were also being carried out. Therefore earlier in the year to embark on this programme will be better
Due to the end of the year also, we found that many companies were not interested to join our events to be partners in this programme as their CSR funds are mostly if not all are mused up by the time we started.
Parents were not directly involved in this project but many parents came forward and got involved in their children’s training at home and noticed their children’s higher motivation in sports
Teachers have reported that children who were sleeping in class were more focused in their teachings in class
The process of getting Bendahari to pay up or get money from the grant for the project was very difficult, inefficient and time consuming with so many paperwork (despite uploading softcopies, online) and this had created a lot of time being wasted. A better and more efficient way of getting the grant to implement projects will be very helpful in many ways
Feedback from Communities
From participants- they want to continue on in this project because they feel healthy and that they feel proud that they could represent their school in sports, a niche they never thought that they would be involved in due to their physical state
Most teachers are very encouraged to continue although, there were schools which did not even practice except on the tournament day. After the tournament, all the teachers were motivated to be more involved in this programme
As some of the overweight children had improved in their weight and had become ‘normal’ in weight (and hence no longer satisfy the requirement), we may need to form ‘WFC Alumni club’ in the future for these children before they are able to join the other ‘normal’ football club in schools
Last Update: 09/02/2023