I started playing basketball at the age of 13 and since then I’ve used basketball
as a tool to realize my greatest dreams and actualize my fullest potential.
Through basketball, I was able to visit and live in the most amazing countries,
meet the most amazing people, and experience the most amazing things. Although
my experience through basketball has been amazing, I didn’t see enough opportunities
put in place for more girls from Africa to have the same dream. I attributed
this problem to cultural biases and economic situations. Family, community,
and religion reinforce stereotypical behavior of gender roles. Traditionally, boys
are more encouraged into sports than females
What’s more, many African households have an average income of less than two dollars
per day. As such, parents make their young daughters work as an additional
source of income. This leaves no time for extra-curricular activities, such
as sports or incentives to finish their education. In addition to that, we have
little to no female administrators, coaches, leaders advocating the importance and
continuous investment of the girl-child participation in sports. For this
reason and the need to prove that sports can positively affect the overall development
of our young girls led to the birth of H4G. I am a prime example how a girl
can leverage sports to do great things!