I have become а part of the Global Sports
Mentoring Program which has been set by the University of Tennessee, U.S.
Department of State and espnW. The Aim of the program is to use sport as a tool
to empower, educate, develop, give better opportunity and confidence to young
girls and women around the world. This will make them more successful in every
direction of their life. I have been chosen by US embassy in Sofia after several
interviews with the idea that Bulgaria should be represented in the strongest and
most influential female sport of the country – Rhythmic Gymnastics.
We had an orientation week in Washington DC where we received the
basics from our mentors Sarah Hillyer and Ashleigh Huffman. The focus was on
how to initiate an action plan for creating better opportunities for girls and
women in our communities and that also included lots of meetings with different
experts in sports industry. At the end of the week we went to our Mentor’s
cities.
My Mentor is Sarah Hirshland, senior
managing director of business affairs at the United States Golf Association alongside with her amazing team, including:
Deanna Molina, Kathryn Carson, Mary Lopuszynski, Emily von Doehren and more.
I am going to learn managing strategies, how to work with partners
institution, structure of the US sport, initiating school sport system in
Bulgaria, ways to apply educational programs for children and different
valuable skills, experience and access to networks that can lead to future
opportunities.
After a week of my new experience in USGA with Sarah I have
achieved:
- Met with people and had discussions on different topics such as volunteering, interns, merchandizing, finance, funding etc. with experts from the upper positions in USGA
- I have been learning about the history of golf in US, the history of USGA, how the organization is structured, organization of championships, merchandising, funding.
- Visited the USGA museum
- Got my first experience on the golf course
- Started working with the social media
- Identified the main direction of my work connected to my job in Bulgaria – developing and expanding my RG club in order to involve more girls and women in sport; to create a support committee and work closely with all national RG clubs in Bulgaria under the Bulgarian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation; establishing further connections between my current employer the National Sports Academy and the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Sport in Bulgaria.
I would like to thank to all USGA members who are so kind and help
me with everything I need and especially to Sarah Hirshland for giving me the
opportunity to learn from their knowledge and experience.
Feeling ready to start making my action plans at the beginning of this
week.