25 winning schools across Northern Ireland secure coveted place on retailer’s established Mental Health Athlete Mentorship programme delivered by the region’s sporting legends
Lidl Northern Ireland has selected 25 secondary schools across the region to benefit from a dedicated Mental Health Athlete Mentorship programme this academic year as part of the retailer’s award-winning Sport for Good initiative, with each school also scoring £1,000 worth of brand-new sports equipment.
This week, the retailer announced 25 winning schools – hailing from towns from all across the region – who were selected for the programme following a call out for competition entries in October and were nominated by local shoppers.
A team of Northern Ireland’s best-known athletes have been selected and specially trained by the Youth Sport Trust, the UK’s leading charity improving young people’s education and development through sport and play, to run a series of workshops targeted at secondary school pupils, with a focus on boosting young people’s social skills, self-esteem and body confidence through sports participation.
Representing a strong cross-section of sport and boasting an impressive array of achievements, the stellar line up of NI sports stars delivering this year’s mental health workshops include four-time Paralympic athletics champion Michael McKillop MBE, Olympic steeplechase athlete, Kerry O’Flaherty, Olympic hockey heroes, Shirley McCay MBE and Eugene Magee, Northern Ireland netball international and Armagh ladies’ Gaelic footballer, Caroline O’Hanlon, and female rugby union international and Olympian, Ashleigh Baxter.