Spotlight: King’s College London Student Recognised with RFU ‘Value the Volunteer’ Award

For this month’s spotlight, we speak with King’s College London medical student Sanaa Sarfraz, a member of the Guy’s, King’s & St Thomas’ Women’s Rugby Football Club, who has been honoured by the RFU President with the ‘Value the Volunteer’ award. This recognition follows her earlier achievement as the Students’ RFU Volunteer of the Year, which highlighted her exceptional contributions to university rugby and led to her nomination for the national award.

"I am incredibly honoured and humbled to have been a recipient of the ‘Value the Volunteer’ award from the RFU President this year, representing the Students’ RFU and my rugby club, GKTWRFC.

"Last year, I was shocked and grateful to receive the Sportsperson of the Year Award from my medical school and the Students’ Volunteer of the Year from the SRFU. The support gained from successful grant applications to the university and the RFU development grant has been invaluable to our success.

Sanaa Sarfraz

"My rugby journey began 6 years ago at King’s College London as a medical student, where

throughout my time I have played in the forwards and more recently at 9. I may be one of the few people to play prop and then scrum-half from one season to the next! Throughout my time at GKTWRFC, I have served as Social Secretary, Events Secretary, and President on the committee. In these roles, I organised our inaugural mystery summer tour to Prague and our 30th anniversary ball, with £6000 in sponsorship to subsidise the event. I then wrote our Guys’ Girls + Guidelines for every player to hold them accountable, regularly organised 1:1 meetings with all committee members to address areas for improvement, created an injured players group chat to ensure every player felt included and valued, and ran a training session to stay involved.

"I have also organised for the girls to have gumshield indicators that guide concussion treatment, along with a personalised training shirt at no added cost. It is a true testament to the club's culture that we have an incredibly diverse group of girls. This has inspired me to try to create rugby-specific sports hijabs, as they have yet to be considered in the game. Whilst doing so, I have organised for the girls who wear hijabs to have their own sports hijabs at no added cost. To increase playing opportunities, I have arranged for us to play our own Varsity for the first time this year and to participate in NAMS for the 26/27 season.

"As a small club of 40 girls, I could not be prouder of the impact we have had on the game. We were one of the very few teams selected to partake in the university’s performance programme, which enables us to have strength and conditioning classes after we have been promoted this season. We also made the decision to play in NC3, making us one of the very few university teams playing in a women’s club league.

"The support from our 14 sponsors has also enabled us to fund and subsidise activities for our members whilst keeping our subs at only £45. We have recently done 2 charity events: a ‘wear it pink’ event in collaboration with Phenomenally Pink to raise money for breast cancer, which we won charity event of the year from our medical school, and our university-wide sports club mixer at the beginning of the year to raise money for Penguins Against Cancer.

"We have also gained media attention from Ilona Maher, Ellie Kildunne, Dr Simi Pam, Asia Hogan Rochester and Zainab Alema along with being invited to the Adidas Flagship store for an intimate Q&A with Rieko Ioane, Ardie Savea, Codie Taylor and Jordie Barret; Following this, we featured on the ITV game show ‘You Bet’ to take part in their challenges at Thorpe Park. We were also invited to the WRWC Trophy unveiling as a club, which was a surreal experience. More recently, our captain organised a panel event titled ‘The Black Experience in Rugby’ featuring Dr Simi Pam, Anne Onwusiri (Black Girls Ruck), Frank Sackey (Old Downbadians), Chanté Williams and Derayo Adetosoye (Counteruck) to detail their stories and answer questions from an audience.

"More recently, the Value the Volunteer award allowed me to have a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of Twickenham before watching the England vs Fiji Autumn Internationals game, where I sat just behind the President of the RFU, Deborah Griffin, who is so inspiring to see as the first female President of the RFU. I also enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the stadium and a stay at the Clayton Hotel; it was a magical and unforgettable evening. My personal highlight was Wayne Barnes introducing himself to me, whilst it was quite clear he was someone who needed no introduction!

"The support and encouragement, both financially and emotionally, from the Students’ RFU has driven GKTWRFC to continue climbing to new heights, and it is truly because of the girls in this club that I am in the position to have accepted this award. I could not be more grateful for everything the RFU and rugby has given me."