This story is featured as part of SUCCEED Stories, through the SUCCEED Framework. SUCCEED (Supporting Communities Empowerment & Development through Sport for All) is a global framework dedicated to fostering community empowerment and development through capacity building in Sport for All. Led by TAFISA in collaboration with the IOC through its Olympism365 strategy, SUCCEED aims to provide a unified and synergistic approach towards building the capacity of Sport for All stakeholders.
Every week, over 80 people gather on a field in Metro Manila. Before a single disc is thrown, they come together in a huddle. Nina Javier welcomes the newcomers by name. Then they play.
That weekly ritual is the result of seventeen years in Ultimate Frisbee, a career built on the conviction that sport should be for everyone - and a realisation, not so long ago, that empowerment is more complicated than she had thought.
Nina founded the first Philippine Women's Ultimate National Team, the Binibinis, and built the Enpower Ultimate Academy around a simple vision: that sport should empower people to live out their true potential. Through the Girls Positive and Safe Coaching Pathway, she discovered the dimension of her work she had been less attentive to - not inspiring girls to reach further, but making them feel seen, accepted, and valued exactly as they are.
"I went from being a role model to being a support. I wanted girls to feel comfortable first with themselves, no matter the struggles they were currently facing."
The Enpower Open Play community she built the month after the course ended now has 600 members. The huddle happens every week.
![[President's Corner] Play. Connect. Inspire. - Reflections from Limerick](https://www.tafisa.org/cache/100_70_202608311607286537_r_european-sport-for-all-games-309.jpg "[President's Corner] Play. Connect. Inspire. - Reflections from Limerick")