Pictured at the launch of Future Leaders Events Month were, left to right, Dublin LGFA star and Balbriggan Community College teacher, Carla Rowe, and Future Leaders Events Month Poster Competition winner, Pia El Asmar.
When Pia El Asmar walked into Croke Park and saw the competition winning poster she designed for Future Leaders Month emblazoned on the stadium’s big screen, it was a real pinch-me moment for the St. Mary’s Macroom student.
Since moving to Cork from her home country of Lebanon, El Asmar has embraced Irish culture and the poster she designed nicely captured both the ethos of the GAA and Future Leaders Transition Year Programme which encourage maturity, initiative, responsibility and leadership skills in pupils.
“I'm really enjoying it in Ireland,” El Asmar told GAA.ie. “The Future Leaders Programme is really fun and I’ve enjoyed learned a lot more about the individual games and how to play them as well as learning a lot about the history of the GAA as well and how it was founded.
“The Future Leaders Programme helps you know how to step up, how to be responsible and how to lead a group to achieve a common goal. You have to be able to communicate and to problem-solve because not everybody is going to agree with your ideas.
“It teaches you lots of valuable skills and it's made me more confident about public speaking especially.”
The competition winning poster designed by Pia El Asmar to publicise Future Leaders Events Month 2025.
Running for five weeks from Monday, April 7 to Friday May 23, Future Leaders Event Month 2025 will see participating schools organising a variety of Future Leaders initiatives in their own school, with local primary schools, in their GAA clubs or in the community in general.
"It was brilliant to be able to welcome our Future Leaders Events Month Poster Competition winner Pia El Asmar to Croke Park to help us launch Events Month,” says GAA Future Leaders Programme National Coordinator, Eoghan Hanley.
“As you can see, she designed a fantastic poster, and we will use her poster to help promote Events Month over the next few weeks.
“Pia is a Future Leaders student in St. Mary's Macroom in Co. Cork and it was great to be able to invite her to Croke Park today, put her poster on the big screens and have her take part in the photoshoot with our intercounty player ambassadors.
“This is her first time visiting Croke Park, so to have her here today as our competition winner really emphasises the inclusive nature of the Future Leaders Programme."
The Future Leaders Transition Year Programme is a joint initiative from the GAA and Oide, the support service for teachers and school leaders.
It is a cross-curricular programme comprising of a series of modules designed to encourage maturity, initiative, responsibility and leadership skills in pupils.
The Programme gives pupils the knowledge and skills to support all roles required in the effective staging of Gaelic Games. As part of the Programme students are challenged to organise and run both on-field and off-field events for younger students.
To incentivise activity in Events Month this year a Sports School Equipment Pack worth €300 will be given to four participating schools each week AND a set of jerseys to the most active school each week.
To be in with a chance of winning one of these fantastic packs, follow these steps;
- Organise and run a Future Leaders Event during Events Month.
- Video or photograph the event and share it on social media with @gaafutureleader using the hashtag #FutureLeadersEvents.
- Log the details of the event in the Events Month form on learning.gaa.ie/futureleaders
Registration for the Future Leaders Programme for the 2025/26 academic year is now open.
For more information and to register your school, go to learning.gaa.ie/futureleaders or @gaafutureleader on social media.