The girl that almost gave up soccer for a baby

I am Keabetswe Ndlovu, a Goal participant at Lehwelereng Secondary School.    

I joined the Goal program because I saw a lot of girls playing sports. I especially like to play soccer but because I am in High School, the boys always used to bully me and my friends when we wanted to play soccer during break time. At first it was only them calling us names and telling us that we don’t belong here and that girls are not allowed to play soccer at school because they have to go home clean the houses and help their mothers. We were 5 friends that played soccer and one day a group of boys came to us and took our ball away – they stole it. We got another ball and played soccer at another area in school and then after a few days the boys did not see us. Then one day, the boys came again, these boys are all matric, so they are a lot older than us. They told us if we don’t stop playing soccer, they will make sure we get pregnant so that we can stay home and be women. That scared all of us and we didn’t even report it so we stopped playing soccer for a long time….that is until we saw about 27 girls playing soccer on the school grounds after school hours and they were laughing and having fun. We could not believe what we saw and went up to the coach to ask if we were allowed to play and told the coach that boys are going to come hurt these girls. Then the coached just laughed and told us that we are safe with her and we have full permission from the principal and that she will not let anything happen to us.

Even though I learnt and play other sports in the program I am free to play soccer with other girls that enjoy it as much as we do. I am not scared anymore, and we have even started our own league within the program and we have learnt so much about life skills too.

I was afraid of doing what I love because I am a woman… Now I know that I am stronger than any boy because they are probably scared that I play better soccer than them         

The girl that almost gave up soccer for a baby

Contribution of Org, staff, coaches        

My coach contributed to this change.