Binti- Girls Dribbling for Bodily Integrity!
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>View discussions about this entry Country: Kenya
Organization: Young Women's Leadership Institute (YWLI)
Sport - Soccer
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 2007
Project URL: http://www.ywli.or.ke
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - Binti uses girls' soccer to focus on sexuality and reproductive health rights and opens dialogue on respect for rights of young women.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - 'Binti' is a Kiswahili word meaning 'daughter' targeting girls in one of the slums of Nairobi. Soccer is used to break the ice in discussions on matters of sexuality and reproductive rights. Focus is on the fact that self esteem, confidence and assertiveness of young women are essential in negotiating for safe sex and control when and how sex happens. Lack of this control leads to early pregnancies, unsafe abortions and sexual abuse that interferes with their education. Girls are also trained on critical areas of leadership and linked up with mentors. The girls have discussions on how to grapple with the challenges of growing up in poverty, vulnerability to sexual exploitation and prevention of HIV/AIDS. The goal of Binti is to strengthen the movement of young women for gender rights, human sexuality and progressive masculinities. Binti offers an avenue to demystify certain notions of flawed masculinities that encourage the violation of the rights of girls and young women.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? - Sexuality is not openly acknowledged and the sexuality of young people is particularly taboo. Girls lack safe spaces to openly share and learn about matters of their growth and development and how that impacts on their education and leadership development. Binti promotes leadership development through mentorship and coaching of the girls involved in the project. The significance of the safe spaces created is that sexuality is discussed and relevant skills, information, capacity and ability shared to make girls proactive in defending their dreams.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - Binti uses soccer to bring girls, young women and women leaders (mentors) together to participate in dialogues, public forums and motivational talks. Friendly football matches and tournaments are organized aimed at opening safe spaces for girls to talk about their issues and seek possible solutions to the problems. It is also aimed at challenging the notion that girls cannot perfect the game of soccer though it is soccer with a purpose for social justice. The girls are equipped with life skills and peer education to promote girl to girl information sharing. Journaling is part of the skills they learn so that they can document their own stories and experiences of both football and life in general. Motivational talks are an essential part of reflections of vision and purpose for the girls.
How do you plan to grow your innovation? - The plan for growth is based on creating visibility for girls' issues and have them articulate them to a wider setting through radio. The Binti radio programmes will be a space for them to interact with other girls live on radio and will allow them to challenge certain injustices in their communities. YWLI will create Binti spaces as autonomous safe spaces for girls through school scouting and girl guide associations. The idea is to get more girls involved in addressing social justice issues in their communities while at the same time creating links and expanding networks through existing structures. Binti will provide space for exchange of ideas as a learning platform through other initiatives of girls' soccer. It is hoped that these girls can play in the national leagues and eventually get some of them invited to the national team.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - The intended result is reduced early pregnancies, increase in girl school retention rate, and more girls speaking up against violations of their rights.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? - The Binti soccer team benefits girls under 16 years while mentorship and coaching is for those aged between 9-20 years. The impact has been in change of attitudes towards the importance of girls' education and soccer as an activity to address idleness and other social problems such as early pregnancies and unsafe abortions. More girls open up on issues affecting them and report for assistance. Girls indicate that they would like to continue with their education even where they had dropped out due to poverty or other reasons. Binti has 25 girls playing soccer and have reached out to others through schools to give talks on menstrual hygiene and health, relationships, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS and what leadership role they can take in addressing those issues. Teachers are more receptive than they were when the initiative was first introduced through one of the community schools.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? - Some parents have got involved in understanding Binti activities and offering more support and encouragement to their daughters. Some boys have opened up in discussions involving them and one aged 14years accepted to go for counseling due to drug and sex addiction.
There are more girls indicating that they would like to go back to school although their parents are unable to pay their fees. 7 who recently completed primary school have asked for assistance in getting sponsorship to continue with education. What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? - The main barriers are in stereotypes and attitudes that promote violations, parents who still see sexuality matters as taboo, and men who due to unsound notions of masculinities sexually abuse girls thus interfering with their education. Community leaders who are non-responsive to addressing such violations. Resources to ensure proper facilities, exposure and school sponsorship remain as the big challenge.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - Currently, Binti is funded by the Ford Foundation for 2 tournaments this year, motivational talks in schools, and an exchange visit as a learning platform with other girls who play foot ball but are also trained as peer educators to reach out to other girls and young women.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization. - Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff. YWLI has an annual budget of at least $ 155,000 although the availability of funds depends on actual funding from targeted donors. For the coming year, the confirmed funding is $ 100,000 with $ 10,000 being towards Binti initiative. YWLI has 1 Executive Director, 1 Finance and Administration co-director, 1 Program Coordinator, an Assistant Program Officer, an Office Assistant, 1 Administrative Assistant, Accountant and 1 Volunteer.
What is the potential demand for your innovation? - There is potential for replication of this model in other parts of the country and a growing demand to address sexuality needs of girls. Adolescents 10-19 years comprise more than one-quarter of Kenya's population. A greater percentage of 15-19 year-olds live in urban areas; this trend is more pronounced among girls than boys. Girls are more likely than boys to live in households in which neither parent is present. This points to need to reach out to more girls for empowerment.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - The lack of adequate funds for institutional support from donors who prefer to give small grants to specific projects.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - Binti is an initiative of the Young Women's Leadership Institute (YWLI) initiated under the internship program. One of the interns decided to work with girls and boys to address their reproductive health issues through peer education. There was nothing new in using peer education, so I discussed with her on how to link our work with what other feminist organizations in Africa were doing. I had just returned from the first ever African feminist forum in Ghana and formation of an African feminist football club was shared. This meant that we have to begin in-country before the continental level. YWLI's mission is to break barriers preventing young women from living lives of equality, we identified the lack of safe spaces as a barrier. While discussing how to attract young women and girls to a sustainable initiative to address their issues I shared with the intern that football which is associated largely with boys can be a cutting edge approach in getting the girls interested and attracting the attention of parents and community leaders. I also gave it the name Binti thus 'daughter' in reference to pride in parenting girls since in some communities there is a preference for the boy child. Thus, the soccer team was created as an autonomous safe space for girls in Kawangware slums. I also wanted to create the link between our core business of leadership development for young women and taking the mantle to address sexuality concerns for and by girls.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. - Saida Ali is a co-founder and Executive Director of YWLI, an organization founded by young women to create space for young women to articulate their views and visions on the women's rights development agenda. She is an Archbishop Desmond Tutu fellow (2007) at the African Leadership Institute. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree, several short courses on human rights and will be undertaking an honors degree on Gender and Transformation in 2008 at the University of Cape Town.
Contact Information:
Saida Ali
Executive Director Young Women's Leadership Institute (YWLI) (Non-governmental organisation ) Saidaaliproductions@gmail.com ACS Plaza, 4th Floor Lenana Road, Nairobi P.O. Box 42661, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya Kenya Tel: (254)(20)3860045 / 6 Website: www.ywli.or.ke Discussions about this entry |
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Hi Saida,
I have been a fan of YWLI since you started in Senegal as an institute to support young activists. It is thrilling to read about how the African Feminist Forum in Ghana inspired you to start Binti Girls. I run Women Win which is a new foundation that gives grants to projects that use sport as an instrument for women and girls’ empowerment. I have worked within the women's movement for over 12 years and that is where I got the inspiration to start Women Win. I am so happy to find your project in Changemakers and see that you are using soccer as a way to focus and improve sexual and reproductive rights. That is exactly in line with the vision of Women Win. I would love to be in direct contact with you and hear more about your project. Please visit our website at www.womenwin.org.
All the best and keep up the great work!
Astrid Aafjes
Women Win
Hi Saida,
I run an organization called love.fútbol that builds simple, safe soccer fields for children in impoverished communities. I noticed that one of the barriers you mentioned was a lack of "resources to ensure proper facilities." I was wondering if our organization might be beneficial to Binti or if that was not a great concern for your organization right now.
We currently work in Central America, but we are interested in working in Africa someday.
Thank you and best of luck,
Drew Chafetz
www.lovefutbol.org
Dear Drew,
I am so excited as I respond to you. Given what has been happening in our country after our general election in Dec 2007, this is definitely something to be happy about. We would definitely love and welcome your assistance in any way in regards to ensuring that we have good playing kits/ facilities. Let me know how to go about approaching love futbol for this assistance. Would that in some way include the possibility of sponsoring our coach for training or some sort of exposure. Just let me know.
Thank you so much for your interest to help.
warm regards,
Saida
Hi Saida,
I really like how you focus on empowering girls and breaking the taboo around female sexuality here rather than catering to the idea that the best way to reproductive health is to avoid sex - or even talking about sex- altogether. Soccer as a sport that is often viewed as "male" is a great avenue towards stregthening female self-esteem and visibility, I think. I just have to refer you to the German/Kenyan project Boxgirls Roadwork, as the possibilities for contacts and cross-training are so blatantly obvious.
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/2279
Godd luck with your work!
Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Dear Jasper,
I agree with you totally and one of the most important lessons as we go on for us is in how girls and for most women growing up in Africa, in poverty are made not to appreciate themselves, their being and sexuality. Making girls learn to appreciate themselves first is an important aspect of dealing with all the issues that come up. Please link us up with the Boxgirls Roadwork project. We will appreciate.
warm regards,
Saida
Dear Saida,
Your project is indeed motivating and using journalism training could help to really develop the self confidence of young women. Have you heard of http://www.africanews.com - they offer a platform for would-be African reporters. Maybe some of your youngsters might be able to post articles there when they are ready with their training?
Do you use music and dance in your program?
Unfortunately I haven't been able to access your website, is the url valid? Would you be able to send more info about your initiative?
We at Spirit of Football ( http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/2211 ) are looking to make even more partnerships with various NGOs and projects in Africa in the lead-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. My non-profit also called Spiirt of Football plans to send University of Erfurt student volunteers to projects in Africa leading up to the World Cup to work on the ground and conduct participatory video assignments.
Maybe we can visit you?
I hope to hear from you.
Andrew Aris
Lecturer University of Erfurt
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Spirit of Football - football's equivalent to the Olympic Torch
http://www.spiritoffootball.com
http://www.spiritoffootball.com
Dear Andrew,
Thank you very much for your comments, I am motivated by what you said. I am sorry for not responding sooner.
I have not heard of AfricaNews before but now am accessing their websites to learn more about them. My apologies for our website, we are working on it and changing its face. Due to some inevitable circumstances, this process has been slower than we expected. It will be up and running hopefully by next week. I welcome any partnerships including some of your volunteers from Spirit of Football coming to visit and be involved on actual activities on ground. It sounds like you will definitely be going for the 2010 World Cup. I wish our girls team can eventually (some of them if not all) participate in the Women's World Cup. Some Day! Do you know any initiatives to train / improve the skills of football coaches. Our coach and his assistant could definitely do with some boosting.
Warm Regards,
Saida
University of Southern California
Really good idea to incorporate journaling as part of the solution. This internal reflection is often neglected in the efforts to establish self-esteem, so it is good to see that you've integrated it into your model.
The idea of creating safe spaces is also critical and may help you gather support from external donors who support women's rights and issues. Have you attempted to form partnerships with local clinics and health agencies? Sometimes foundations are more willing to supply larger donations if they know that the organization is partnered with other agencies and institutions.
Wishing you continued success as you impact the lives of young women.