Hey Springsters!

My name is Naobi and I go to a mixed school with girls and boys. Ever since I was young I loved playing football with my siblings. But when I started secondary school, during sports class the boys went outside for football and the girls had to stay inside and read. When I asked my teacher why girls couldn’t play football too, she said it was “too rough” for girls and we wouldn’t enjoy it.

Imagine that! Girls are strong too, and we can do anything that boys can do. We don’t always have to stay indoors and do calm activities. Getting active and trying new things is important.

After school I spoke to a couple of girls about my feelings, and they had been thinking the same things too! We believe girls have the same rights as boys, all we needed to do was come together, raise our voices and take a stand. There is strength in numbers!

Assemble the players

We needed a way to get our voices heard, so first we gathered everyone together for a pep talk to make sure we all had the same goal in mind. It’s important to show up as a unified front when influencing a decision. Afterwards we went onto the field to play a friendly game of football. It was so much fun!

Getting the ball rolling

The next day news spread of our activities and it was good news. As the weeks went by, more and more girls came to join us after school. You have to take action to show people you’re serious about achieving your goals. They say actions speak louder than words. With our actions we sent a loud message that girls can play sports too. And people could actually see that.

Scoring our goal

We raised our voices. We took action to show our interest. Now it was time to make our request. We decided to write letters to the principle telling him why football and sports was important to us. Myself and 2 other girls delivered the letters to him and asked if we could make our after-school team official. We wanted a proper coach with lessons like the boys had. Guess what? He said yes! He had seen our passion and consistency and was very impressed by us.

Now we’ve won loads of competitions for our school. And we’ve shown ourselves that when us girls gather together, take action and speak our minds, we can have influence over decisions that are made about us.