Digicel Cup hosts fun-filled school holiday program for students

The first Digicel Cup School Program was a huge success yesterday at Port Moresby’s National Football Stadium, with 195 students from 10 schools taking part in the fun-filled football activities.
The Grade Seven students had a great day and were thrilled to meet players from the SP PNG Hunters team including Nickson Borana, Ase Boas, Watson Boas, Esau Siune, Benjamin Hetra, Atte Wabo Bina, Thompson Teteh, Butler Morris, Wartovo Puara Jnr, Noel Zeming and Adex Wera.
Digicel CEO, Maurice McCarthy, said the inaugural program aims to promote health and well-being among local school children.
“It’s so important for our children to learn about the benefits of positive mental and physical health,” he said.
“Yesterday’s program saw the students and football players go through five sessions which covered how to do a pre-game warm up, health and wellbeing, rugby league skills, motivational talk, team building activities and a friendly game of touch rugby.
“It’s a great honour for Digicel to hold this program throughout the country to help inspire local school students.”
Hohola Demonstration School PE teacher, Nancy Wemin, said her students were extremely excited to participate in the program.
“The students had a wonderful time at yesterday’s Digicel Cup School Holiday Program and meeting the SP PNG Hunters was definitely a highlight,” she said.
“Most of the students have never been to the new National Football Stadium so they were thrilled about visiting it for the first time.
“Our students were so excited to participate in the program; they have been counting down the days from when the awareness program team visited our school in May to announce it.
“All of the PE teachers who attended, agreed it was a great opportunity for us to learn more Rugby League skills, including the warm up practice, which we will be able to use in our lessons going forward.
“We all mainly focus on volleyball, netball and soccer so learning from the Hunters players was very informative and inspiring.”
The Digicel Cup School Program saw special guest appearances from the SP PNG Hunters team, Reps from SNS Port Moresby Vipers, PRK Gulf Isapea, Holiday Inn Life Gymnasium Zumba Instructor, Mosiloku Mossie Vaia, and reps from Touch Football PNG, Jerry Borg and Paul Kasisie who volunteered as referees for the friendly touch rugby matches.
The next Digicel Cup Community School Program will be held in Kokopo and Lae on Wednesday, 13 July and will see 80 registered primary school students participate in each of these centres.