Fatuma Adan: A 'living example' of the transformative power of sports

Fatuma Adan won’t take no for an answer. “I’m supposed to be locked up, married. I should be a grandmother now,” she told an audience of development workers at a conference held in June in Ottawa, Canada. Instead, Adan has unexpectedly managed to defy cultural norms and expectations, forging her own destiny and becoming a trailblazer for women’s and girls’ rights in her community. Adan hails from Marsabit, a small town in northern Kenya — Adan calls the area “Kenya 2” which, according to her, “starts where the tarmac ends.” In Kenya 2, girls rarely finish high school. Early marriage and pregnancy, female genital mutilation and domestic violence are just some of the many issues faced by girls and women in this remote and underserved part of the country. As an adolescent, Adan was startled to see her schoolmates drop out one after the other. She wanted to help, but wasn’t sure how, and quite naturally thought of pursuing higher education first, brushing off the fact that Marsabit didn’t count a single college-educated woman among its population. She fought her way through law school, having to drop out for a year when she couldn’t pay for tuition, and eventually came home armed with her degree. Adan started providing legal aid services to the community to help solve conflict at the family and local levels. But the work required constant trips to remote villages, and the amount of cases soon became overwhelming. In 2003, she launched a community-based organization that trained paralegals who could take on part of the work — the Horn of Africa Development Initiative was born. Law, however, often proved to be powerless in the face of conflict. Many issues such as rape or divorce were being settled out of court by the council of elders, which was made up exclusively by men, and settlements left women greatly disadvantaged. What’s more, the area was facing direr security problems caused by deadly tribal clashes, of which women and children often were the first targets. Adan realized she had to change her strategy if she wanted change to take place. “I needed a bigger playing field,” she told Devex. Enter football. Adan was 25 years old when she first kicked a ball, and immediately became a devotee. When the game helped her deal with her own personal issues, she understood it could have a transformative power on women. “I fell in love, but I was not able to marry that person. I had to wait for 14 years,” she explained. “The minute I was able to kick the ball at 25 years old, I was able to say, ‘This is the person I love and this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.’ It’s very rare for girls to even have that chance to choose whom they want to be married to, given the cultural background,” she added. ‘Shoot to score, not to kill’ Adan created a football program called “Shoot to score, not to kill” to bring young men to peacefully address issues linked to tribal clashes. The program would also work separately with girls to help create a safe space where they would be free to express themselves. Having girls play football was unheard of in the area, and parents were initially reluctant to see their girls participate. “I would have to knock on people’s doors and say, ‘Give me your daughter, I’ll bring her back myself,’” Adan recalled. She also had to negotiate with some of the local imams who were preaching against girls playing football. They agreed on a set of rules to allow the program to take place, such as using a uniform that includes a headscarf, a long-sleeved jersey, stockings and a long shirt covering the knees. Parents eventually rallied around Adan after seeing tangible results — a few months after the program started, the girls who participated were doing better in school, helped more around the house, and had much fewer chances of getting pregnant. Some of the parents still disagree with the program, but Adan said that football gave the girls the confidence to negotiate with them to be able to play. Learning from failure HODI’s journey hasn’t been without setbacks. A few years ago, eight girls were kidnapped while the team was traveling to a football game by parents who were planning to marry them off. Adan was able to bring two of them back, but she experienced the event as a considerable failure — she knew that once married, the girls would never be able to play again. However, this was also an opportunity for her to reflect on what the program was trying to achieve. “I learned my lessons, and we learned the lessons as an organization. It’s about working around that and [asking ourselves], ‘What did we do wrong? What did we do right? How do we improve on the areas that failed and led to the girls being kidnapped?’” she explained. Adan has since created a third program that uses football as a platform for education around health, rights and personal development. It trains peer educators to teach in partner schools, and integrates elements of this curriculum into the football training program, creating a direct link between the values taught on the playing field and in the classroom. “I felt it wasn’t enough to get the girls to do sports. We can only do sports one hour, two hours. What do they do the rest of the time and how can we support them to be able to stay in school longer?” Adan said. She thinks HODI’s track record can make the case for using football for conflict resolution and to improve the life of girls. More importantly, the lessons learned about teaching Muslim girls how to play sports can be replicated in countless Muslim communities where letting girls play sports is currently frowned upon. “We have learned it’s possible to engage the girls and change their lives,” she said. “It has a positive benefit for girls and women to participate in sport, and I am a living example of that,” she added. Check out more insights and analysis for global development leaders like you, and sign up as an Executive Member to receive the information you need for your organization to thrive.