Community football – playing for peace in Kenya

Stabua Khatija Yusuf lives in Nairobi’s slum district. The Kibera slum is home to some 200,000 men, women and children. From the distance it forms a patchwork of reddish-brown shacks, all topped with rusting corrugated iron roofs. They say that if you’re not from Kibera then don’t go in there without a local by your side as you will never find your way out of the maze of connecting streets.

Stabua combines her university studies with coaching Ayany Sisters women’s football team. Many of the girls who play for Ayany are victims of rape and domestic sexual abuse. Some of the rapes, according to Stabua, were politically motivated and carried out during the inter-community violence that claimed hundreds of lives following Kenya’s disputed presidential election in 2007.

Stabua’s was just one of many stories heard during a week working with football coaches and community leaders from across Kenya. Our goal was to help build social cohesion and try to prevent inter-community and political violence in the run up to next year’s presidential election. Like everyone else in Kenya, Stabua and the Ayany Sisters are the victims of their own country’s recent history.

As part of the reconciliation effort the British Council has been working with Active Citizens in Kenya to help them build social cohesion. By promoting football, environmental and social projects, anything that improves people’s lives, we can improve relations between communities and even bring in some much needed money.

A group of Kenyans came to Britain in 2009 to visit social and community projects. They were impressed with the way football is  used to build confidence and improve the prospects of young people. They saw Cardiff  City’s Football in the Community team developing young players and coaches at schools and through the club itself. Many of these boys and girls had been written off by the system, but by using something they are all interested in, football, they are growing educationally and are now taking an active part in their communities.

Following that visit, the Cardiff  team was invited back to Kenya  to continue the development of the young volunteers. There were visits to the ministries of Justice and Sport as well as the Kenyan Football Federation so that everyone from the top down understood what we were trying to do. Twenty five Active Citizens from all over Kenya made their way to Nairobi  to be put through their paces both on and off the pitch.

The venue of where the British Council project took place was the Upper Hill High School , which sits about half a mile up the road from the British High Commission overlooking downtown Nairobi.

The Active Citizens at Upper Hill were given a week of practical coaching sessions and were shown how to organise clubs and arrange tournaments. Football is an international language and together we discussed how we can use it to bridge religious and ethnic divisions in our society. Everyone there had a story to tell.

The commitment of the young Kenyans to this football project was demonstrated  by Daniel from Rongo in western Kenya. He has been coaching football for many years but disaster struck in a junior game. His neighbour’s son broke his leg in a heavy tackle. It was a bad break and required the bones to be reset. Daniel took the boy to hospital and looked after him but his mother then demanded 750,000 Kenyan shillings (about £5,000) to pay the hospital bills. With no insurance things were looking bleak and Daniel had to sell part of his family’s land in order to pay the bill. “I thought of giving up the football, really I did, but what else would I do?” he says.

If the upcoming election were fought on the basis of commitment and goodwill, then Stabua, Daniel or indeed any one of the team of Active Citizens would automatically emerge victorious.