As published by The Mast Newspapers Zambia on May 25, 2018
Sport can empower girls to fight poverty – Sonko
A 31-YEAR-OLD sports facilitator says sports can be used to empower young girls to fight poverty.
Annet Nakiwala Sonko from Response Network says the organisation will embark on a project starting next year until 2020 to empower girls and young women with sports and entrepreneurship, and life saving skills.
In her power-point presentation at the just ended International Working Group for Women in Sport (IWG) and after attending a Women Sports Leadership Academy (WASL) in Gaborone, Botswana from May 14 to 20, Sonko said Response Network was adding a component of entrepreneurship and life saving skills to sports to help young girls become self-reliant.
“We at Response Network are aiming at empowering girls and young women with sports, entrepreneurship and life saving skills so that they can be self-reliant. These will help young girls to develop personal and social decisions that help them come out of poverty, have self direction and respect for one another,” Sonko said.
She noted that Response Network works in Kazungula, Zimba and Kalomo districts where girls and young women do not have the necessary knowledge and platform to articulate their challenges with regards to sport, entrepreneurship and life saving skills.
“We work in areas where young girls and women do not have a space to express themselves and participate in leadership programmes and are not given platforms to apply their entrepreneurship skills. So beginning next year until 2020, we will embark on a project to empower girls and young women with sports, entrepreneurship life saving skills so that they can be self-reliant,” said Sonko.
“We basically want rural girls and young women to have the ability to articulate and practically apply and encourage entrepreneurship skills amongst their peers and families. Since young girls and women in the rural areas are farmers, it is very important for them to have entrepreneurship skills that will help them realise their potential to start up save and borrow groups through sports and life skills.”
In her abstract to the WSLA and IWG, Sonko indicated that young people are the fastest growing segment of the population in Zambia and their welfare is fundamental to achieving key economic and social goals