Dr. Elizabeth Odera began working with children from Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, nearly two decades ago. “We were inundated with many young men and women from Southern Sudan who had run away from wars in East Africa,” Odera explained. “They had nothing to do. They would just roam around.”
Odera knew firsthand about the power of sport and achievement to build self-esteem. A former international competitive tennis player, she had gone on to become one of the first women to earn a PhD in immunology in Kenya. She decided to start a basketball league that would also engage the children in service related activities like tree planting and fund raising for improving their communities.
But even basketball had its risks in Kibera. For Odera’s children, playing on the dirt courts meant braving threats from the gangs that laid territorial claim to nearly every inch of the slum. “In Kibera, there is no place to call your own. We got chased from one point to another,” Odera said. “A number of times we were attacked. The men in the area ran away, but of course, I couldn’t leave the kids. I was left with hundreds of children cowering and wondering what to do.”
Despite these dangers, Odera persisted. The tournament grew to become one of the largest events in East Africa, and many of the children moved on to receive scholarships to universities. “It was just an amazing passage for them,” she said. “And I realized that it was possible to make real life changes for these children through sports.”
For children growing up in Africa’s largest slum, life is a daily struggle to survive. Bordering Nairobi, Kibera houses nearly 1 million people in only 1.5 square miles. The slum’s labyrinth of mud shanties and alleyways has poor security and little access to clean water or public sanitation. Living amidst violence, drug abuse, and high rates of HIV infection, children here are particularly vulnerable. There are few schools in Kibera and even fewer opportunities to break free from poverty.
After the success of the basketball tournaments, Odera continued her mission to transform the lives of youth from Kibera and other parts of Nairobi and founded a recreation center called Sadili Oval. But soon after starting Sadili Oval, Odera noticed a significant problem—getting the girls to participate. “More often than not, they were on the sidelines watching the boys. Even if you got them to train in a separate session, the minute any boys came they would just walk away,” said Odera.
Odera views the girls’ extreme shyness as a product of fear and cultural upbringing—challenges that have proven to be obstacles to the girls’ ability to achieve academically. Pervasive attitudes dictating that girls belong within the home are contributing to a low rate of school attendance by girls in Kibera, especially for those raised in traditional families that expect them to take on the duties of housework and to care for their siblings rather than study.
Sexism has also affected the kinds of subjects girls excel in. “Science was my biggest strength in school,” Odera said. “But girls in our schools—and not just those from Kibera—tend to run away from math, chemistry, and physics, because they believe that those subjects are not for girls. And teachers have contributed to that belief.”
Odera wanted to get girls to challenge these attitudes, and Sadili Oval’s Girl Power Club program was born. Combining tennis training with leadership activities, a network of Girl Power Clubs are now reaching girls from sixty-seven schools around Nairobi. By using sport as a messaging tool to discuss self-esteem and gender issues, the program gives girls the opportunity to speak their minds and become agents of change for themselves and their communities.
Girls are assigned leadership projects, and as they have progressed in the program, many girls have begun creating social change projects on their own initiative. For instance, one club has helped victims of sexual violence acquire counseling and care. Another Girl Power Club was able to get its school to agree to issue an official code of conduct governing how girls should be treated in class by teachers, who have often been the perpetrators of discrimination and inappropriate contact.
