Willy Gnonto paid a surprise visit to Calverley C of E Primary School recently to take part in a Leeds United Foundation Primary Choices session.
The young forward was the special guest for the club’s seasonal BBC MOTD community feature, meeting students from the local school as they participated in their spotlight workshop with the club’s official charity to discuss the impact of the decisions they make.
During the visit, the Italy international was on hand to get involved in some of the interactive games looking at positive and negative attitudes, as well as a game aimed at improving their knowledge around how old they need to be to participate in various activities, such as driving and drinking amongst others.
Before leaving, the 19-year-old also answered a number of different questions from the group, as they found out more about his career-to-date, some of the difficult decisions he has had to make involving leaving his family and the country he was born in, and how he has adapted to life in the Premier League at Leeds United.
Willy spoke to BBC MOTD during the visit, and he said: “If the club gave me the chance, I would come every day. It’s fun to come along, and it’s also really interesting for me to be involved. We have a great chance to be able to help the kids, and to try to help guide them a little bit, which I think is really important so they can make some changes, because they are still so young.”
Luke Irwin, the Choices Lead at the Leeds United Foundation, added: “Primary Choices was put together by the Leeds United Foundation, and the programme is completely free to schools across Leeds, and we are currently delivering in over 200 of them. The sessions are designed to discuss the risks of anti-social behaviour and how we can make positive choices around everyday life, so they can learn about bullying, knife-crime, social media, peer pressure and lots of other things.
“It’s amazing that we can get players involved with the work that we are doing, it really helps us to deliver important messages, especially giving young people the opportunity to hear different stories about where the player has come from and what they have been through in their life and career, and how they’ve handled positive and negative choices.”
If you would like more information on the Primary or Positive Choices programmes being delivered by the Leeds United Foundation in primary and secondary schools throughout Leeds, please contact [email protected].
