About AGUSA

Africa Girls United Soccer Academy (AGUSA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established to support girls soccer development in Africa. We have formed a partnership with the Khwisero Sports Academy in Kakamega County, Kenya. 

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Khwisero Sports Academy

In 2001, Ibinda Primary School teachers created the Ibinda Girls Sports Centre focused on only one sport – Soccer. As the school-based program grew in size and scope, Khwisero Sports Academy was established in 2016. They moved to Khwisero Sports Ground and added Netball and Lawn Tennis activities. The academy’s membership currently stands at 240 girls from nine local schools including 190 soccer players.

Background

Soccer is the second fastest growing sport in the United States, surpassed only by lacrosse and is the fourth most popular sport in the country behind American football, baseball, and basketball. In Africa, soccer is the most popular sport in virtually every country. Development of soccer skills in these countries has contributed in the professional and financial enrichment of individuals who participate in the sport as players, especially those who end up playing internationally.

Girls soccer, unfortunately, has only in recent years picked up support and interest as the sport has historically been deemed a boy’s game consistent with archaic and now shunned gender discrimination practices. This, in part, is AGUSA’s inspiration, namely, to help in the further promotion and entrenching of girls soccer in Africa and to equalize the “playing field” for girls in opportunities presented in this area of sports and fitness development.

Soccer has also emerged as a single unifying factor, even in the moment of political, ethnic, socio-religious violence, tension,and feuds. For example, soccer played a key role in unifying Rwandese people in the 24 years since the genocide in 1994. In addition, soccer has bridged boundaries and brought people of other nations together.

A Path Forward

Due to the extremely high unemployment rate among the youth in Africa, young people often find themselves in situations they would rather not be in and no one would wish for their child.

For example, young boys either end up in the streets homeless or resort to doing drugs to cope with their states of depression or committing crimes to support themselves or their families.

Girls, on the other hand, have it worse as they are often forced to prostitution and sex trafficking in the hands of heartless criminals taking advantage and exploiting the vulnerability of these young girls owing to idleness and lack of opportunity.

Those who are lucky and not drugged and dragged into this social vice, still find themselves facing and dealing with other maladies such as an inability to get education due to poverty, being forced into ridiculously underaged marriages under the guise of cultural customs, teenage pregnancies and simply nothing to write home about their lives.

AGUSA is designed to offer solutions to this challenges by providing:

• Opportunities for not only these girls to learn soccer and pursue their achievable dreams, but for the girls to also inspire others and help end gender inequality as their success will impact attitudes and the exercise of power.

• Educational options through athletics for these young girls to pursue academic studies while developing skills to increase their exposure and create interest from universities and colleges, especially those in the United States.

• An avenue for both universities and well-wishers to offer these girls scholarships or other financial support to help realize their full potential both on and off the field.

Our inspiration is drawn from the fact that girls are the future mothers and will pass on their knowledge and experience to their children, soccer in this case and, to help bring about gender equality in their respective countries.

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Goals & Objectives

It is said the children are our future and this is, indeed, true in every respect. How a country nurtures and takes care of its youth defines its future. Those countries that invest in youth stand to remain or become leaders of the world while those who do not remain or fall into the bottom where poverty and being destitute remains a staple.

Investing in the youth requires building a solid foundation for these future leaders by maximizing their potential. AGUSA was established to tap into soccer as one underutilized avenue to provide a path for such training and leadership.

We believe this investment can be realized and be more effective working in partnership with the government as well as other well-wishers and stakeholders like you.

Investing in AGUSA means young female athletes can be given a chance of making it in life through sports. The founders and promoters of AGUSA equally believe that opening opportunities to these young girls will bring individual happiness and brightness to their homes and communities from which they hail. 

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Supporting AGUSA will have great impact in improving living standards of young girls specifically, and the communities from which they hail.

Anticipated Outcomes

AGUSA is designed to produce benefits that are multi-dimensional:

• Cadets or junior and senior soccer players are trained and equipped with basic material for training and career development.

• Provide an opportunity for girls to have enough time to study and to learn sports related skills as opposed to being forced to engage in unproductive after school activities, such as fetching firewood or water.

• Providing an environment that will help monitor and manage in shaping the characters and behavior of the girls aimed at setting them up for a lifetime of positivity and success.

• The training activities shall encourage the spirit of competition and especially self-challenge in these young girls, which will help build strong personalities in each one of them. 

• Reduce cases of school drop out and help improve education standards for girls. 

• Enable girls to have a pathway to getting decent work and avoid the traps of prostitution and other vices.

• Provide equal opportunities for girls who are often competing against boys in a society that often disadvantages girls and as women when they grow older.

• Enable girls to have access to better medical services and health care education. • Reduce cases of girls’ insecurity in the society.

• With sponsorship, outstanding young girl soccer players who need immediate and sustained attention vital for a possible professional career would receive adequate training from AGUSA. We will also be on a lookout for any other hidden talents in these young girls and help direct them in the right direction where those talents can be fully developed.

• The coming together of young people from all parts of the community shall foster friendship ties and encourage national integration that is indispensable in national unity and nation building.