BOTH CHINASA Mandy Ukandu and Luis Alejandro Castañeda have told the Voice Online that they feel extremely fortunate to have won the 2019 WorldRemit Future Stars coaching programme, which saw them flown to the UK for a week of coaching master classes held at Arsenal Football Club.

Travelling from her home country of Nigeria, Ukandu was the first female coach to benefit from the international competition which looks to shine a light on community coaches from Africa and South America.

The programme was developed by online money transfer company WorldRemit and Arsenal to celebrate the positive impact that grassroots youth football coaches have on their communities, helping the children they train to develop life skills both on and off the pitch.

Over 1400 applications were made by aspiring hopefuls across the regions and almost 40,000 votes were cast in less than three weeks.

Ukandu received the highest number among the female coaches and Castañeda who coaches blind children received the highest number among the male finalists.

Hailing the success of the competition co-founder of WorldRemit, Catherine Wines said: “It’s our second year doing Future Stars and we found out from the first year how important it was to link up the community but also to recognise what people are doing for their community.

“It’s always humbling as far as I am concerned to see people all over the world who get involved in their community.”

She added: “This year we wanted to ensure that diversity was there, a lot of football coaches are men but there are still a lot of women and that’s why we decided to select two coaches, a man and a woman.”

As well as experiencing exposure to some of the best youth coaching sessions in the Premier League and witnessing Manchester City play the Gunners, both Ukandu and Castañeda were treated to a tour of London where they got to view all of the famous sites, during their week in the UK.

Ukandu said: “When I got the call, I couldn’t believe it, it was something else. I was like, who voted for me?

“I didn’t know. I had a few friends and a few people that knew what I was doing but I didn’t know how it happened.

“It’s been the best thing I have ever done. I feel lucky and blessed to have had the experience.”

Columbian Castañeda said: “When WorldRemit called me and said I was the winner I couldn’t believe it, it felt like a dream.

“My family was very happy, especially my father, he’s blind but he told me he believed in me.

“My experience with the Arsenal staff at the Emirates was amazing. I’d never been in a stadium in Europe before and I was happy to study lessons about soccer. They spoke to me about systems I can use with my blind kids back home.”

Ukandu added: “Thank god for WorldRemit because now they have given me more energy and given me more inspiration. They’ve given me the go ahead and love what I am doing.

“When I applied to Future Stars I did so because I thought if I applied then maybe one or two people more will know what we are doing.”

Wines said: “For us it’s something that we felt worked well in terms of linking the community but also trying to help people like Luis and Chinasa to enhance their role as well.”