FC Bayern Women were also represented at this year's Girls' and Boys' Day organised by Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) on 3 April. Mala Grohs, a goalkeeper and mechanical engineering student at the Technical University of Munich, gave the participants valuable insights into her world and showed what it is like to be successful as a woman in male-dominated professions - both on the football pitch and at university.
A platform for success stories
The annual Future Day gives school pupils the opportunity to familiarise themselves with professions that are trained at BR and beyond. Participants can get a taste of a total of eight different workshops in areas such as media design, IT and office management. One aim of the day is to attract young people to careers that are traditionally more likely to be taken up by the opposite sex.
Grohs was not only an inspiring person, but also a living example of perseverance and multitasking. Just four months after her cancer diagnosis, she returned to the pitch as a goalkeeper. Her story, marked by an operation and a recovery phase, is touching and motivating - especially as she is also a student in the technical field and therefore holds her own in two male-dominated disciplines. As part of her participation in Girls' and Boys' Day, she talked about her experiences on the football pitch and in the university lecture theatre.
“It was a great opportunity for me to share my previous experience with all the participants. I’m particularly pleased when I can motivate girls to take up technical professions and encourage boys to become more aware of these topics. I think the young people have taken something away with them and realised that it is important to go your own way and to enjoy what you do. You can turn your hobby into a career, but you don't have to. It's also nice if you can build your life on several pillars and try out lots of things,” Grohs summarised after the Future Day at BR.
According to the German Federal Office of Family Affairs and Civil Society, the Girls’ Day – Girls’ Future Day project is intended to help “expand the career opportunities of girls in promising professional fields in which they are currently underrepresented (...) in order to improve their labour market, career and earning opportunities”. Boys should also be given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with professions in which men are still underrepresented. The Federal Office writes on its website that new options for futures in career and life planning are opened up and social skills are strengthened through taster internships specifically for boys, as well as workshops.
Jovana Damnjanović recently boosted her off-pitch life by opening a new café:
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