This story was to appear in Sunday Nation's Young Nation but the images were not high-resolution enough for Nation editors. Pole Sana!
Kibera Girls Soccer Academy strikes a goal on stage
By Margaretta wa Gacheru
Confident, cheeky and comfortable
being children of Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum and one of the biggest in
Africa, they are the all-girl cast who starred last Saturday (april 29) in the
Kibera Girls Soccer Academy production, entitled “Is there no End?”
Staged last Saturday at Alliance
Francaise, the play was devised by a group of mainly teenage girls who call
themselves Outspoken Associates.
They had a little help from Michael
Onsando, a scriptwriter for the NTV sitcom ‘Mali’ and local thespian Oliver Wafula,
two volunteers who have been meeting the girls every Sunday afternoon for last
few months at the school to rehearse, revise and refine a script that examines
aspects of teenage love in these times of profound social and cultural change
in Kenya.
Michael Onsando and Oliver Wafula arm wrestle while Outspoken Associates, from Kibera Girls Soccer Academy look on.
Tackling complex topics such as
prostitution and betrayal, unwanted pregnancy and what to do with an unwanted
child, the script was raw but reflective of real talent. It also addressed real
issues witnessed by the girls in their everyday lives.
Outspoken Associates was started
by five teenage girls who shared a passion for poetry and spoken word
performance. Their group has grown to almost twenty after being ‘discovered’,
encouraged and assisted by an American poet living in Kenya named Imani
Woomera.
“She gave us courage to continue
because she saw our talent and our passion for poetry,” said Lynne Sero, 18,
one of Outspoken’s original cast members.
Since meeting Imani, the group
has performed several places, including the Das restaurant in 2011 and Alliance
Francaise in March, 2012, at the opening of the International Women’s Day
celebrations.
“We also perform at school
functions,” said Sero, who just graduated from the Soccer Academy but remains an
active member of the group since she still loves writing poetry and performing
it as well.
Explaining how the Kibera Girls Soccer
Academy started in a similar ad hoc style as their Outspoken performing group
did, Sero said the school grew out of the girls’ soccer team. It was instigated
by their soccer coach, Abdul Kassim, who got tired of training talented young
sportswomen in soccer who subsequently disappeared after winning multiple
games.
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Teen members of the Theatre group, Outspoken Associates all attend(ed) Kibera Girls Soccer Academy
“He realized the girls needed a
school to make them stick around,” said Sero. “So he borrowed money from his
grandmother and bought a small plot in Kibera where he built a classroom for
the girls. He’s been struggling to find sponsors ever since, but he has been
fairly successful.”
The success of the girls’ soccer
team, which Kassim trains, has been a major factor in winning both local and
international sponsors for the Academy. Several of his students have made names
for themselves at the national and continental levels. One has become a Harambee
Starlettes; several others have joined the Kenya Women’s Soccer Team, and
another just went professional and joined the Tunisian national team.
But it is the poetry and spoken
word performances of Outspoken Associates that inspired Onsando, Wafula and
most recently Anne Moraa to decide to volunteer regularly with the girls whose
ages range from 14 to 22.
“I volunteer to assist the girls
because I love poetry and the spoken word genre, and I also love the girls’
energy and enthusiasm,” Moraa said, a University of Nottingham graduate who at
22 is just a few years older than the oldest Outspoken cast members.
Judging
from their performance last weekend at Alliance Francaise, I agree that Kibera
doesn’t just have an outstanding girls’ soccer team. Their performing artists
also have great promise both as writers and spoken word artists.
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