Young Lady's Soccer
Each year in the Zinder region the volunteers organize a small soccer season and tournament for Middle/High School girls (ages 13-16). When I first heard about this project I’ll be honest and admit I thought it sounded a little lame. Fun, and probably easy, but ultimately, sort of a silly project. I couldn’t have been more wrong about nearly every single pre-judgement I made.
I love this project. And I hate this project. (But really I love it.)
I’m gonna skip the technical details of how different things have gone wrong and who has annoyed me. I don’t feel like this is necessarily the space for venting or for airing out dirty laundry. Even if the likelihood is next to nothing that anyone from Matameye would somehow find my blog and then find someone who could translate it from English to Hausa or French, the point is I’ll save that for another venue and just say that sometimes more support would be nice and being responsible for a band of 10-15 16-year-old, sometimes flakey and sometimes rowdy girls is stressful, frustrating, and tiring.
So, I’m glossing over the hard side of things and presenting the reasons why I love it, and I’ll just say that in sum, its one of the things that has made me happiest since I’ve arrived here.
When I first got to Matameye I picked up with the team of girls that the volunteer before me had started. Many bumps in that road, but the bottom line is that I became their coach. I can not even come close to explaining how much these girls love to play soccer and how happy it makes them, how badly they need that outlet, and how much it means to them to finally have an opportunity to be kids, take a moment away from studying and away from house work. For these girls it’s huge.
Beyond that, I love that I get to be an advocate for them. When the hordes of obnoxious young guys come to the field, try and push us to the corner, or steal our ball, as angry as I get, I like that I can stand up for these girls. I don’t want to make it sound like these are meek girls to be pitied. Far far from it. These girls are tough as hell. But a group of 10 girls trying to play a soccer game can only do so much against a crowd of 30 guys who like nothing more than interfering and just generally being grand pains in the ass. Furthermore, girls in Niger are often unaccustomed to being told that they are a priority, that their experiences, or just even their FUN, is important and worth someone getting angry about. I hope that makes sense, its something I probably wouldn’t have fully understood until seeing it first hand.
The team impacts the other girls at the school as well. Even those who don’t themselves play often come to watch our practices. I’m sure it has a positive effect on their self-esteem, through watching and supporting their classmates. It affects others in the community as well. Every time someone asks me why I do a girls team and not a guys team its an opportunity to discuss with someone that girls here in Niger almost never ever get a chance to just play. And in contrast, that boys here do almost nothing else. Gender divisions here are mind boggling, very deeply rooted in culture, and sometimes religion. And further, there seems to me a lack of appreciation for how different those two worlds between men and women can be. Of course that’s a tiring and often frustrating conversation to have over and over and over and over again. But I have it a lot. And while everyone certainly doesn’t agree with me or even get what I’m talking about, sometimes people do.
Look, I can go off now and dork-out, diving into macro-level reasons why girls empowerment is one of, if not the most crucial variable in a country’s development. But I know that that doesn’t get everyone as hot and bothered as it gets me. So I’ll give as concise a sliver as I possibly can. An empowered girl, whether through education, sports or anything, is better able to advocate for herself and participate in decisions relating to the family once she is married. Increasing female empowerment is thus very highly correlated with decreasing fertility rates. Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world at 7.5 children per woman. Development, I’ve heard, is nearly impossible until a country can lower the fertility rate to below 5 if not lower. It’s simply not possible for state infrastructure to keep up with population growth and population pressure. In a country like Niger with very bare natural resources, that number should probably be even lower before the country can turn the corner. There is a long way to go here.
For those who skimmed that last paragraph. Here’s the summary of my summary: Girls empowerment is really really important.
Finally, on the personal side of things, I’ve always been surrounded by ladies in my life. By that I mean my sister, my four step-sisters (no guys in that mix), and a tendency for the ladies to outnumber the gents in my circle of friends. I don’t know why, but its been like that all my life. That simply does not happen in the same way here as it does in the U.S. and that has been an unforeseen challenge for me. This team has given me a chance to develop relationships with some of the most wonderful young ladies I’ve ever met, and through this team many of them have become some of my very best friends in Niger. So here’s a huge shout-out/thank you to them and if I can get a picture loaded you’ll catch a glimpse of em as well.
I love this project. And I hate this project. (But really I love it.)
I’m gonna skip the technical details of how different things have gone wrong and who has annoyed me. I don’t feel like this is necessarily the space for venting or for airing out dirty laundry. Even if the likelihood is next to nothing that anyone from Matameye would somehow find my blog and then find someone who could translate it from English to Hausa or French, the point is I’ll save that for another venue and just say that sometimes more support would be nice and being responsible for a band of 10-15 16-year-old, sometimes flakey and sometimes rowdy girls is stressful, frustrating, and tiring.
So, I’m glossing over the hard side of things and presenting the reasons why I love it, and I’ll just say that in sum, its one of the things that has made me happiest since I’ve arrived here.
When I first got to Matameye I picked up with the team of girls that the volunteer before me had started. Many bumps in that road, but the bottom line is that I became their coach. I can not even come close to explaining how much these girls love to play soccer and how happy it makes them, how badly they need that outlet, and how much it means to them to finally have an opportunity to be kids, take a moment away from studying and away from house work. For these girls it’s huge.
Beyond that, I love that I get to be an advocate for them. When the hordes of obnoxious young guys come to the field, try and push us to the corner, or steal our ball, as angry as I get, I like that I can stand up for these girls. I don’t want to make it sound like these are meek girls to be pitied. Far far from it. These girls are tough as hell. But a group of 10 girls trying to play a soccer game can only do so much against a crowd of 30 guys who like nothing more than interfering and just generally being grand pains in the ass. Furthermore, girls in Niger are often unaccustomed to being told that they are a priority, that their experiences, or just even their FUN, is important and worth someone getting angry about. I hope that makes sense, its something I probably wouldn’t have fully understood until seeing it first hand.
The team impacts the other girls at the school as well. Even those who don’t themselves play often come to watch our practices. I’m sure it has a positive effect on their self-esteem, through watching and supporting their classmates. It affects others in the community as well. Every time someone asks me why I do a girls team and not a guys team its an opportunity to discuss with someone that girls here in Niger almost never ever get a chance to just play. And in contrast, that boys here do almost nothing else. Gender divisions here are mind boggling, very deeply rooted in culture, and sometimes religion. And further, there seems to me a lack of appreciation for how different those two worlds between men and women can be. Of course that’s a tiring and often frustrating conversation to have over and over and over and over again. But I have it a lot. And while everyone certainly doesn’t agree with me or even get what I’m talking about, sometimes people do.
Look, I can go off now and dork-out, diving into macro-level reasons why girls empowerment is one of, if not the most crucial variable in a country’s development. But I know that that doesn’t get everyone as hot and bothered as it gets me. So I’ll give as concise a sliver as I possibly can. An empowered girl, whether through education, sports or anything, is better able to advocate for herself and participate in decisions relating to the family once she is married. Increasing female empowerment is thus very highly correlated with decreasing fertility rates. Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world at 7.5 children per woman. Development, I’ve heard, is nearly impossible until a country can lower the fertility rate to below 5 if not lower. It’s simply not possible for state infrastructure to keep up with population growth and population pressure. In a country like Niger with very bare natural resources, that number should probably be even lower before the country can turn the corner. There is a long way to go here.
For those who skimmed that last paragraph. Here’s the summary of my summary: Girls empowerment is really really important.
Finally, on the personal side of things, I’ve always been surrounded by ladies in my life. By that I mean my sister, my four step-sisters (no guys in that mix), and a tendency for the ladies to outnumber the gents in my circle of friends. I don’t know why, but its been like that all my life. That simply does not happen in the same way here as it does in the U.S. and that has been an unforeseen challenge for me. This team has given me a chance to develop relationships with some of the most wonderful young ladies I’ve ever met, and through this team many of them have become some of my very best friends in Niger. So here’s a huge shout-out/thank you to them and if I can get a picture loaded you’ll catch a glimpse of em as well.
posted by This Guy at
12:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home