Belgian club giving local girls hope

RWDM Girls was named gold award winner in the Best Club category in the 2016 UEFA Grassroots Awards. Based in the Brussels municipality of Molenbeek, the club makes a priority of welcoming players of all cultures and footballing abilities.

Ramzi Bouhlel (club coordinator, RWDM Girls) 
We work on the basis of two pillars. The first of these is the social pillar. It's a club that's open for all – every girl that signs up for us has her own place, whatever the level, competitive or not. We want all the girls to learn to play good football, and learn the basics, so they can one day hope to go on and join the elite teams. So we wouldn't say that our club is 100% social or 100% elite – it's both – and it's one of the only clubs to do it like that.

David Van Renterghem (club adviser for Brussels area, Royal Belgian Football Association) 
The area is very multicultural, and it's important to further develop women's football by reaching out to several nationalities and diasporas. Compared with the boys, there are girls who may be of such and such a religion and may not be able to play football. But this development of women's football allows for a certain level of equality between girls and boys, and that's something we really want to highlight, at least in our region.

Sakina Ouzraoui (RWDM Girls & Belgium U15s)
It's a club that is at the very centre of Belgium, it's in the heart of Brussels. And what's also special is that it's in Molenbeek. We can show our pride at being from Molenbeek and show what is good about it and not what is bad.