Beyond the Body: Sports for Development
Every other day is an international day of this, that, or the other, or so it seems. April is no exception, with 23 UN-recognized international days; but did you know that April 6 is the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace? Sports are increasingly acknowledged as an effective tool for bringing about social change across the globe. Across Africa, access to sports is limited—usually to boys, and usually to kicking some form of a ball. Our sports-oriented grantee partners have introduced other organized sports like basketball, rugby, boxing, and tennis as a vehicle for social development to great positive impact at an individual and even national level.
MATCH Foundation founder Tadala Kandulu grew up playing tennis, a sport considered elite in Malawi, and made the national team at age 12. After traveling globally and playing in college, Kandulu wanted other youth in her home country to have similar opportunities and set out to create a space for children to strengthen their education and play sports too. Through their ‘Play and Stay’ model — play the game, stay in the program — MATCH uses the court as a safe space where young people can ask life questions and get guidance. The goal isn’t to mint the best tennis players; the sport is a mentorship tool, especially when it comes to mental health. Depression and suicide are rampant among young men in local communities, so MATCH’s mental health programming is particularly geared towards boys. The challenge with girls in these vulnerable communities is retention, especially as they approach their teenage years and are assigned more domestic chores. “There’s this perception that sports is for boys,” Kandulu describes. In the organization’s early days, community members were skeptical about the benefits because tennis was so unfamiliar. Now, the program receives positive feedback from parents that their kids are showing positive behaviors at home too. When they come to MATCH, they don’t just hit a ball around, they also develop discipline. Segal Family Foundation board chair Martin Segal concurs, “Sports as a tool for development is universal! I see how participation has positively affected my daughters outlook: they are learning to be good teammates, which in turn is helping them become good people.”
The same holds true for many of our other sports partners, including Moving the Goalposts. Working in conservative and predominantly Muslim communities along the Kenyan coast, football (soccer) is the vehicle by which they create a space for girls to develop both sports talent and life skills, including leadership and sexual and reproductive health. Initial challenges revolved around the negative societal perceptions of girls in sports, the requisite attire, and the practice hours; two decades down the line, the response in Kilifi is “massively positive” says executive director Dorcas Amakobe. As with MATCH, the goal is not to turn these young players professional but to channel qualities like confidence and form a network of girls who look out for each other. The payoff is evident in the short and long run: a number of the girls end up earning a living through sports, like one Moving the Goalposts alumna who is now a pro soccer player in Greece. Another who used to play was encouraged by her family to continue coaching even after getting married – unusual for a woman from these coastal communities. These accomplishments are indicative of the community’s supportiveness towards the programs. Moving the Goalposts refers to themselves as a sports for development organization, with a focus on women’s rights. “What is shown in the media is mostly men’s sports; we want to see more women active and rising in the field,” Amakobe says.
The efforts to include girls and women in sports are sometimes also born out of necessity. BoxGirls was founded following the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya. During the unrest, many women and girls were in need of self-defense skills; passionate boxer Alfred Anjere founded the organization to teach preparedness. Eventually, boxing became a tool to further address other challenges faced by girls and women in marginalized communities. BoxGirls runs a variety of programs by age and works to challenge community stereotypes around girls in sport. Sports manager Sarah Ndisi describes their work as training girls “to become a defender, not an offender.”
In communities where misinformation spreads easily, the role of sports program alumni is vital. Shamas Rugby head coach Joseph Otieno introduces himself as a former beneficiary of the organization, through which he got an education and eventually earned a livelihood. “I’m a living testimony of what rugby can do for someone,” Otieno states. Shamas employs rugby as an entry point to communities in Kenya, connecting them to other resources like scholarships and social workers, and bringing together parents and guardians for their own programming as well. Why rugby? Because of the values that come with the sport such as teamwork, character building, and relationship strengthening. Shamas is also intentional about incorporating more girls in rugby to encourage gender equality.
For Orkeeswa in Tanzania, the alumni community has become the organization’s backbone. In the early years, founder Peter Luis used to bring support in the form of international volunteers; a decade and a half later, Orkeeswa has 30 alumni aboard the team. Their primary and secondary schools incorporate soccer, rugby, basketball, and volleyball. Sports have always been a key component at Orkeeswa, to expose students in the predominantly pastoralist Maasai community to as many co-curricular opportunities as possible. The school teams travel internationally for competitions, giving them exposure to worlds beyond their own. Youth run as much of the programming as possible and a number of students have evolved into coaches and leaders in their own right. Orkeeswa also has a strong relationship with local government, at the Arusha regional level and the national level, and an entirely local staff. Consequently, Luis says, their programs are now “stronger than ever” but there is still need for further investment to enable more international sporting opportunities for the students.
Looking at the diversity of the Segal Family Foundation portfolio, it may appear that we fund just anything and everything. Our approach, however, can best be described as not sector agnostic but rather sector contextual—meaning that what an organization is doing has to make sense within the community’s needs. For the partners highlighted here, sports are helping to make possible education, empowerment, and development. Investing in organizations like these has ripple effects starting from the younger generations through the future; for a continent like Africa with a generally young population, funding sports is funding life. To learn more about how to support our sports partners, talk to our Equitable Giving team.
