HARARE - A United States Aid (USAID) organisation has started a project called Goals 4 Girls which seeks to use soccer as a way of educating girls about their rights.We aim to use sport to empower the young women of Zimbabwe, said Karen Freeman, USAID Director in Zimbabwe. The project involved soccer matches which featured eight schools in Harare. The school girls were taken through life skills workshops in which they were taught about their rights. Thereafter, they competed against each other in soccer matches.
Two non-governmental organisations working the field of child rights, Family Support Trust and Justice for Children, were involved in the project. We taught the girls how to protect themselves from abuse and also to report any abuse that they might have suffered or see said a representative of the Justice for Children.
Goals 4 Girls is part of the United States Embassy Zimbabwe friendship programme. It aims to highlight the importance of girls sport and well being.
Girls traditionally are excluded from competitive activities such as sports and those things that provide critical thinking skills that allow people to thrive in their work place and in life, said Freeman.
Traditionally girls have been disadvantaged to the extent of not even going to school. In some instances they have been forced into early marriages to pay off family credits while in other cases they are told to shut up when they are abused by a relative, friend or family member.
The two organisations involved in this programme taught these girls that they have a right to go to school, be safe from abuse, not to be taken advantage of, to report if they are abused and to be heard, said Freeman. Apart from this the girls were also taught about reproductive health on how to take care of their own bodies.
I learnt that girls can also sexually abuse you and that we should not be too close to male friends, said a school girl.
Post published in: Football