Moving the Goalposts changing lives of 9,000 Kenyan girls through football
“We are pushing the boundaries that have been placed there for women and we were going beyond that. We have seen a lot of transformation working with the girls but we have also seen a change in how the community see girls and young women.”
Dorcas Amakobe is director of Moving the Goalposts, which runs women’s and girls’ football programmes in coastal Kenya. As she explains, the organisation’s impact in the Kilifi, Kwale, Mombasa and Tana River counties runs far beyond sport.
“Girls were facing a lot of challenges around being able to go to school,” Amakobe says. “A lot of them were getting pregnant and dropping out – those that managed to get to school.
“We had girls facing sexual abuse – they were targeted, some were raped, some were actually physically abused by their parents and these circumstances have made women feel inferior. That was emphasised by the social norms in the community: that a woman’s place was in the kitchen and women only aspire to reproductive roles.”
So they started Moving the Goalposts to help girls think about themselves differently and that started on the pitch: “Football then was reserved for men. We didn’t have any women playing football in the coastal region of Kenya. Therefore it was a good opportunity to start a conversation. When girls came to the pitch there was a lot of attention.
“People started asking why girls were occupying this space and that helped us start a conversation, that girls can do anything that men can do. If a girl is given an opportunity to go on the pitch, to go to school, to run a business, she can achieve the equal potential that a man can achieve.”
Amakobe is softly spoken but the authority of her organisation rings loud at Laureus’s Sport for Good global summit in partnership with Allianz in Paris, where representatives of 130 organisations using sport to create social change are meeting to discuss and share their experiences.
Since Moving the Goalposts was founded in 2002 it has gone from working with 300 girls and women aged nine to 25, to 9,000 and the decision to use football to reach out into rural communities was an obvious one. “Using football was a message in itself, because it was purely reserved for men,” Amakobe says. “We also needed a sport which was accessible. If you have a sport which costs a lot and needs a lot of infrastructure then that means it’s not accessible.”
They have shifted attitudes. “It has not been an easy thing for us. When we started we had a lot of obstacles and challenges. We work in really deep villages where transport is a problem, so if you don’t plan how the girls will go back home the chances are these girls might not reach home. We’ve had parents pushing back; they didn’t want their girls occupying these public spaces. Some said our girls were rude, because the girls were confident and getting to know themselves.
“Now we have 9,000 girls. That means more parents are allowing their girls to participate in sport. Few schools had teams for girls to play in. Now we run school tournaments and we have more school teams participating in the Kenyan school league than any other region.”
The organisation uses its position in society to expand on conversations around gender equality. “We have training for parents in our programme and also conversations where parents and girls are able to discuss issues around gender and equal rights. I feel our investment with the parents has been one of our biggest successes.”
Moving the Goalposts fuels its growth by bringing into the fold as coaches the young people it has helped, training them and offering schooling and career assistance in return. “Most of the sessions are run by volunteers who are beneficiaries of the programme. We don’t employ people from outside. We give them incentives, we give them school fees to go back to school, help with uniforms. We invest in their own growth and development as young people.”
What does watching the development of the girls mean to Amakobe? “That’s when I get emotional,” she says. “One of the girls just signed a contract in Israel to play in the Israeli top division. She started with our programme when she was nine and we’ve seen her become a professional player. Apart from seeing the change in her as a sportswoman we have also seen a change in her as a person.”
It is not only those forging a career in football who are seen as success stories. “There is a presenter on a radio show who joined our programme having dropped out of school at primary age. She never went to high school. She joined our programme and we insisted she had to go back to school.
“Now she’s a radio presenter at a radio station in our region. She’s not a sports presenter, she’s not a football player, but you can see the change she’s able to have in the community because she was given an opportunity through sport.”
The Africa Women Cup of Nations kicks off next week in Ghana with three countries able to book a place at the World Cup. Kenya’s chances are slim, given they are ranked 129 in the world and are in it only because Equatorial Guinea were disqualified for fielding an ineligible player. But a good showing from African teams at next year’s World Cup in France would do wonders for the profile of the sport on the continent.
“It’s really important,” Amakobe says. “If we have more girls in professional sport and more winning the global awards that in itself would create a shift. Having African women’s teams getting media coverage, getting the opportunity to play on a global stage, is important.”
And Kenya? “I feel that we have a chance but our federation needs to invest more.”
Talking points
• Hibernian secured their third Scottish Cup in a row, and a Cup double, with an 8-0 defeat of Motherwell. Having missed out on the league title to Glasgow City, Jamie-Lee Napier scored a hat-trick and Abi Harrison grabbed two with Caitlin Michie, Lauren Davidson and an own goal completing the rout.
• Birmingham City goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger and SC Sand’s Carina Schlüter have been called up to the German national team following injury to Wolfsburg’s Almuth Schult. Berger returned to action following thyroid cancer last February.
• Manchester City’s Georgia Stanway and keeper Ellie Roebuck have been called up to the senior side by Phil Neville for England’s games against Austria and Sweden. Also making her first appearance at an England camp is Orlando Pride’s versatile Chioma Ubogagu who has represented the USA at youth levels.
• Lionesses captain Steph Houghton will receive her 100th cap if she appears in either of this week’s international friendlies. The only question is whether Neville will hold her back in Austria so she can reach the milestone in front of a home crowd.