Waseda Wild359ers: Improving the Health and Wellbeing of Children in their Local Community!

In January, members of the WLS Netball Club had the opportunity to join the Waseda Wild359ers Club to teach netball to elementary school students from the Tokorozawa area in Saitama.

Wild359ers is a volunteer club from Waseda University (Tokorozawa Campus), where university students organise and run different sport and recreational activities for children to achieve their goal to “make Tokorozawa a place where many children are strong both physically and mentally”. Additionally, they have four main aims to help achieve their goal;

• Local children expand their horizons through sports and cultural activities.

• Increase opportunities for children to find and enjoy sports that suit them.

• Students will have connections with the local community and play a role in it.

• Revitalize local communities and create new connections.

(Translated from the WILD359ers website)

As part of the weekly fun-土 event, which gives children the opportunity try many different sports, members of WLS went to Tokorozawa for three netball sessions. For most of the children it was their first time learning about netball, however they were able to pick up the basic skills for the sport very quickly!

The main instructor from WLS for the event, Hikari Yomiya, had this to say about the experience, “Since it was my first time teaching elementary school students, I was a little bit nervous at first. However, as the session progressed, I could see smiles spreading across the children’s faces, which also made me happy to teach. I'm also grateful to the members of WILD359ers for their constant support. I would love to work with them again and teach netball to more children in the future”

Also, Yuki Ogawa, leader of WILD359ers, has told us “it was our first time playing netball and we did struggle to learn the rules and remember the positions at the start, but as we kept on playing matches, we managed to make a game into shape. It was a very good experience for both the children and us university students.”

Wild359ers is an impressive group run by university students who are clearly passionate about improving their community by supporting youth. Tokyo Netball would like to thank the group for giving our members the opportunity to join their activities and teach netball!