National network to develop girls and women football in Kenya
Location
To create a network in Kenya that will move the Kenyan Football Federation to implement national structures in football, especially for girls and young women.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Sport
Soccer
Year the initative began (yyyy)
2007
YouTube Upload
Project URL (include HTTP://)
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram:
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Few effective tools for personal improvement
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Include through sport
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Advocay and lobbying: strenghtening the demand side of social society in sport
Name Your Project
National network to develop girls and women football in Kenya
Describe Your Idea
To create a network in Kenya that will move the Kenyan Football Federation to implement national structures in football, especially for girls and young women.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
To create a network in Kenya that will move the Kenyan Football Federation to implement national structures in football, especially for girls and young women.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field?
CBO's tend to fill in the gaps which national sports organizations leave open. In stead of filling the gap this innovation wants to convince the Kenyan Football Federation (KFF) to do what it's supposed to do: organize football activities for girls and women. In Kenya the focus of the football federation is on adult players, especially men. Moving the Goalposty Kilifi's football players have a dream. They want to play for the World Cup. For Kenyan girls it will remain a dream when the focus of attention of the football ederation doesn't shift form adults to youth. MTGK wants to create a network that aims to convince the KFF to implement national structures for girls and women. This idea is unique because it seeks the consensus of all stakeholders who organize football activities or use football as a tool in Kenya to convince the KFF to position itself and take action in favor of girls/young women
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change?
Talented girls football players can't fulfill their potential because of lack of structures and conservative attitudes in Kenyan football
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
* We will create a network that will lobby to move the Kenyan Football Federation (KFF) to implement national structures for girls and young women
* We will create a network that will lobby to convince the Kenyan Government, public and schools that neglecting the talents of girls and women means that half of the Kenyan people is not able to fulfill their potential.
* We will create a network that will follow up the development of girls and women football in Kenya
* We will organize a national conference with stakeholders, professionals and wide media coverage
* The network will establish a bigger network in East Africa
How do you plan to grow your innovation?
* We're in the process of setting up a network through internet and visits in Kenya and other countries in East Africa.
* We've held interviews with various stakeholders in Kenya
* We started talks with the Kenyan Football Federation (KFF) and key figures in Kenyan Football
* When the KFF will have a development plan for girls and women football in Kenya, it strenghtens girls- and womenfootball initiatives and it has set up national teams for girls under 13, under 15, under 17 and under 20 and the last two teams will participate in preliminaries of the World Cup football for women, the network will discontinue itself.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact.
Girls and women can fulfill their potential in Kenyan football fully.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries?
National sport organizations who neglect girls and young women are guilty at not giving their people a chance to fulfill their potential. The benficairies will be all girls and young women who like to play football in Kenya.
How many people have you served directly?
There are 3000 girls and young women playing football in activities from Moving the Goalposts Kilifi (MTGK) in Kilifi district, Kenya. Two hundred thirty seven girls have been trained as coaches, 136 as referees, 33 as first aiders, 82 as peer educators and 100 girls in other leadership roles. Thousands of girls participate in annual leagues in Kilifi district and in MTGK school tournaments
How many people have you served indirectly?
A multiple number of those 3000 girls and young women. Parents benefit from fit daughters engaging in healthy and safe football activities. Girls spread the messages they learn in peer led health education about HIV & AIDS, reproductive health etc. Communities and other institutions benefit from empowered girls with leadership skills and the knowledge the girls have gained through Moving the Goalposts Kilifi. MTGK is also active in various platforms in the communities, in health forums and football.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation?
* Change of attitude: the Kenyan Football Federation (KFF) will have a development plan for girls and women football in Kenya and implement it
* The KFF will strenghten girls and women football initiatives
* National teams are formed for girls under 13 and 15 and young women under 17 and under 20 which will participate in the international competitions for the World Cups.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact?
The conservative attitude of the Kenyan Football Federation
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
* Organizations will contribute from their own budget (transport, internet)
* External funding
* When the objectives have been met the network will be discontinued
If known, provide information on your finances and organization.
Annual budget: 5.500.000 Kenyan shillings
Annual revenue generated: 5.500.000 Kenyan Shillings
Five full time staff, four part time staff (all women)
Volunteers (all girls and young women): 30 peer educators, 5 Montioring and Evaluation volunteers, 120 field committee members, 37 referees, 17 first aiders, 90 coaches, 1 international volunteer
Advisory board in Kilifi, board in United Kingdom
Support from local, national, international organizations, schools and government
Local, national and international donor support
What is the potential demand for your innovation?
The support will be big. Individuals and organizations are not used to think about investing in sport/football for girls and young women in Kenya. The reality in Kilifi district is that people understand the message which Moving the Goalpost Kilifi is giving and that they're willing to support it. Spreading the message in a broader context and to more people will strengthen the networks demand for a more serious approach for girls and women football at national level in Kenya.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability?
*Organizations can't contribute from their own budgets (for transport, internet)
* No external funding
* That achieving the aims will take more than five years
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
One of Moving the Goalpost Kilifi's (MTGK) objectives is to enable girls and young women to create and benefit from opportunities to fulfill their potential as football players, leaders and managers of football activities. MTGK doesn't want it's beneficiaries' development to stop at the border of Kilifi district. Our dream is to have at least two players and two coaches at the World Cup for Women in 2019. To achieve this we need to have strong national structures in Kenya and we need to start NOW. "Kaluwa" is 12 years. If we give her a chance to grow she can be a national player. If we don't start building a strong national structure for girls and women football "Kaluwa" won't reach her top and we'll be sure she'll watch the World Cup 2019, like in 2007, on televison! People in charge of football should create the best opportunities for players. If they don't, girls and young women will be denied the right to fulfill their potential.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
My name is Cocky van Dam, football development worker and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) Volunteer for Moving the Goalposts Kilifi (MTGK), Kenya, a youth sport organization which uses football as a tool to empower girls. In 2005 I came to Kilifi to help to improve the quality of football in MTGK. MTGK has good and transparent football structures, but outside MTGK the structures are lacking. To change systems in Kenyan football we need to establish a bigger network.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate? (this is confidential)
Through internet. I've been able to assist MTGK in developing football as a tool for empowerment of girls. Girls in Kilifi can develop themselves step by step to become the best players in the district. Kilifi girls play matches in Mombasa and Nairobi. For the next step it's necessary to set up a national network. When national structres will have been set up I've contibruted to MTGK's objective: to enable girls and young women to create and benefit from opportunities to fulfill their potential as football players, leaders and managers of football activites. VSO's motto is: "Sharing skills, changing lives". If I can help to convince the Kenyan Football Federation to set up national structures in girls and women football I've made the best of my VSO placement.
Affiliation (please list all that apply)
CARE, Sport and Development, Mama Cash, UK Sports, NCDO, Stichting Meer Dan Voetbal, Ford Foundation, VSO
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Comments
Dear Cocky -
Congratulations on getting up on Changemakers! And hi to Sarah Forde when you see her. I have long marvelled at your great and important programme and hope that we will be able to get more projects for girls and sports growing in Kenya.
I would like you to share a bit more about how you evaluate your work and how the young women have been involved in that. I have heard that you have some very innovative models.
Please also take a look at our project based in Nairobi and Berlin called boxgirls roadwork (also here on changemakers) where we teach girls self defense and running to build character and safe communities. I would love it if we could do some joint training or leadership development camps in the coming years to help build the next generation of women sport leaders. Perhaps you can also say something about how you want to extend your message through East Africa and what sort of networks you are using or other methods to achieve that.
I also hope that in these times of extreme unrest and insecurity in Kenya that you and the young women take good care of yourselves and each other and realise how important it is to have community building projects.
All the best from Berlin.
Heather Cameron
Heather Cameron
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Hi Heather,
Sarah here, good to hear from you. Yes, things are not great here in Kenya. Kilifi is calm after the initial burning of some stalls by the side of the road minutes after Kibaki was sworn in. People were so angry that they attacked anything that they could relate to Kibaki (the stalls belonged to people from Kibaki’s tribe – just poor Kenyans trying to earn an honest living). Of course, the flushing out of Kikuyus from Rift Province has been more systematic and a result of much more complex, unresolved land and tribal issues. We are all very saddened by the loss of lives and displacement of so many innocent Kenyans who had so peacefully gone to the polls on 27th December. The arrogance of our leaders is depressing and as you say, makes our work all the more important.
For me what it makes important is not what we do but HOW we do it. In MTG we have built an organization with a core value of girls’ participation in planning implementing and monitoring activities. They know that taking on leadership positions brings with it huge responsibility. We promote transparency and respect for all and have an open, fair and strong institutional system which is difficult to abuse. We do not tolerate impunity, corruption and disregard for the law and through this we hope we are developing leaders for today and tomorrow. Young people in Kenya are tired of the ‘wazee’ (old people) who will cling on to power at all costs.
Your message about our monitoring and evaluation reminded me that we must update our website! But yes, we think that we have been quite innovative in trying to ‘measure impact’ and we’ve done so by sticking to our core value of girls’ participation so that we are a self critical, open organisation. We do believe that sport is a powerful tool for social change but we also recognize that it cannot be the answer to all our problems and can sometimes have an impact that you never expected (positive or negative). These need to be documented. We have written two articles on our M&E which we are hoping to get published, so I will keep you updated on that but in the meantime go to http://mtgk.org/publications.html for some of the documents on our M&E.
It would be good to work together on leadership training, let’s stay in touch.
Sarah
Cocky,
This is a fabulous idea and seems like something the nascent sport for change network in Kenya could and should get behind. I also think there are resources that you might want to tap, i.e. CARE's has a lot of knowledge in the field of advocacy albeit at the goevernment level. It would be interesting to look at the countries, particularly African that have strong natioonal football federations for women - do they exist? - as a benchmark. The changemakers discussion could be a place to post a query about this topic and qauge interest among others. The recent entry from the KNVB on the topic of building the infrastructure for girls football is a suggests they would be a supporter! It also strikes me that this could be an advocacy goal beyond Kenya. Could the Africa Cup of Nations or the Confederations Cup or the World Cup in 2010 be a place to raise awareness for the cause.....i.e. great that football is strong in Africa, but what about the girls?!
I would love for you to brainstorm how you think other stakeholders - local to Kenya and externally - could support this effort, including the private sector, etc. What are the main obstacles to the achievement of this goal, e.g. lack of interest among girls to play, lack of infrastructure, cultural resistance, fat cats in the men's federations, etc.?
Best of luck and keep up the good work!
ZC
Cocky van Dam
Dear Ziba and Heather,
Sorry for taking time to reply on your input. I like the Changemakers website, but when you depend on internet connections in cafes and when you’ve a weak memory for usernames and passwords it’s quite a challenge to respond quickly.
As for now I’m in Uganda due to the situation in Kenya. While traveling I talked to some women who are active in football for girls and women in Uganda and Rwanda. We discovered that we’re all facing the same problems: lack of money and lack of structures and the national football federations don’t seem to be that interested. So, it seems we’re sharing some issues. I talked to Felicite Rwema and together with NIKE, CARE and Women Win she already she had already some plans to establish an East African platform for Women in Sport for Change. I think the “network to develop football for girls and women” is a topic which we can share in this network. Things are moving….next week the first meeting of this East African platform will be held in Rwanda. Thanks for your input and I’ll get back to you later, Ziba, with a more detailed plan.
Regards,
Cocky
This is such an difficult and important time for Kenya. Football to some may seem trivial. But the kind of work that MTG is doing is what Kenya needs. I look forward to seeing MTG move forward on this.
I'll be in touch!
Martha Saavedra
Center for African Studies
University of California, Berkeley
Hi Cocky,
what I like about your project is how it bridges civilian initiative and the state sector. As you rightly state, an underlying assumption with many social entrepreneurship initiatives is that a market mechanism (i.e. one based in individual initiative) is better suited to solving social issues than slow and rigid government or semi-public actors. However, in my mind that ignores the real impact that these organizations have and in a larger perspective makes it too easy for them to weasle out on their responsibilities. Using individual initiative effectively to make these big players "do what they are supposed to do", as you aptly state, seems an important easpect of SE to me. Strengthening women´s rights on the way is also a plus. Great work!
All the best,
Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Dear Cocky:
Thank you for participating in this collaborative competition. We value the time and effort you’ve put forth and we would like to offer you feedback and some thought provoking questions from our Evaluation Team.
The focus on lobbying for girls’ integration to develop essential life skills is positive, but there was some question as to whether the funding of Moving the Goalposts Kilifi could instead be invested directly into creation of the desired programming for girls. In addition, the current and future sources of the organizational budget were unclear, which contributed to some question as to the sustainability of Moving the Goalposts Kilifi’s efforts.
Please use this input as both potential insights into your innovations, as well as constructive ideas for how to improve or grow your organization.
Warm regards,
The Changemakers Team
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