Girls Soccer Practice

by Thomas Bwire

The scorching afternoon sun did not deter the girls whom I found training at the Toi primary school soccer playground last Saturday. The under 16 girls’ soccer team were upbeat as they arrived at 4pm for the Saturday soccer routine practice.

Arriving on time is mandatory for the girl’s team or else one would find herself making several laps within the football pitch. Within no time, the girls change into the soccer jerseys and start warming up by doing simple exercises, like jogging to help them keep in shape. Warming up takes roughly like 10 minutes, there after they divide themselves into two teams, the Red team and the Blue team, according to the jerseys worn.

Prrrrrrr!!!!!!!! goes the whistle from one of the team leaders, an assistant coach Caroline Mzungu.Within no time, the game begins and all the teams are attentive as they keep on chasing the ball from one end of the field to the other end. I stood outside the soccer pitch and kept watch how the teams were faring on the pitch that has no grass at all, but dust.




Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!! Goes the first goal from the from the Red team. In less than 10 minutes the Red team was leading by 6 goals while the Blue team managed to score only 2.

At half time I grabbed Caroline Mzungu, the assistant coach, for an interview. She helps in training the girls when the coach is not around. She tells me the number of schools involved in the girls soccer program include, Toi primary, Olympic primary, Ayany primary, Raila Educational center and New Adventure primary school.

“Normally our trainings take place from 2pm to 5pm, so as we can let the young girls go home early to help their parents/guardians and also for them to complete their school assignments,” says Caroline. “Here we teach the girls how to dribble the and pass the ball so as they work as a team when they are playing with opponents during friendly matches or even when participating in local tournaments.”


“Why do you like to work with the girls?” I pose this question to her. “I want to help them overcome the adolescent stage, so that they can know how to take good care of themselves as girls. You know most of the girls at this age are very vulnerable to the community especially the boys who can impregnate them. So here besides just playing soccer, we also advise them to be careful by giving life skills lessons” adds Caroline.

Sharon Chadota, aged 13 years old is among the girls who play soccer at Uweza. She plays position number 5 and is happy to be part of the Uweza family. "Coming here helps me avoid bad company and I am also able to nurture my talent," she tells me. These sentiments are also echoed by Elizabeth Adhiambo aged 14 years old. Her ambitions are to play international soccer for one of the big teams in Europe.


With that, the assistant coach blew the whistle for the second half match and by end of the match, the scores stood at Red team 12 goals and the Blue team got 7 goals.

There you have it: Uweza under 16 girls soccer team had their moment! I believe it wasn’t luck smiling down on them, but hard work and dedication that led them to dedicate their time and come together as a team to help nurture their talent. Each Saturday, you can easily find the team as they practice and sweat it out at the Toi Primary School local field that acts as their training ground.

Empowering the Community

by Thomas Bwire

In a tiny blue room that serves as a classroom at the Uweza center, is a small gathering of both men and women sited in a circular shape as they deliberate on the day’s agenda.

Most of the people in today’s meeting are middle aged from a look across the room they are using. Names are read aloud by the youthful secretary to the members present.

“Christine Awour,” goes the secretary as she reads the name aloud. “Am present” the woman sitting in front of the secretary responds by handing over ksh.550 as her contribution. This is the first task undertaken by present members as they give their contributions to the secretary and she jots down against their names to certify that they have given their contribution.

Calling of names takes roughly less than 10 minutes as the entire meeting takes 30 minutes to be precise so as to ensure time is not lost. “Time is money here, we most of us have left their business un - attended and if we waste much time here, then our businesses will go down.” says Mr.Moi.

Meet the Kibera Agenda 4 group, one of the unique entrepreneurship groups that aims to empower women and men in the Kibera community through personal contributions from their savings to boost their small scale businesses.

The group members all engage in different businesses as source of income, to help empower them and earn a source of livelihood, ranging from selling vegetables, second hand clothes, to washing cars.

Colonia Awino is one of the active members, and noted that she is happy to be part of the group which can easily give loans to its members and won’t give her head ache when repaying. Being in the group also helps her to open up to new ideas.

Another lady is Josephine Achieng joined the group last year and was able to benefit from a loan to boost her business.  "Hard work and focus is all that is needed when you are working as a business person" says Achieng.

Although the majority of the members are women, a few men can easily be noticed sitting amidst them. One such person is William Abuto.  William is among thousands of the 2007-2008 post election violence victims after his only source of income went into flames, he used owned a small shop known as a kiosk within Kibera slums. His only savior in time of need was Kibera Agenda 4 Group whom gave him a loan to kick start his kiosk business, and now he sells electrical appliances.

In our next week's blog, we shall update you with an interview with the group's chairman Tom Odumo on what this group has achieved and also challenges that they encounter in the course of their engagement.

Welcome to the new interns

by Thomas Bwire

The Uweza family is gradually growing and we are happy to introduce to you two of our new interns who reported to the center located along Karanja road in Kibera this Wednesday morning.

Meet Mukami Kibaara and Vivian Njeri, both are law students at the Jomo Kenyatta University. Hardly had the day passed and it was all systems go, as two found a task to be undertaken in the administrative office by digitizing the office manual records into the system.

A brief chat with Mukami revealed that they had met with Jennifer Sapitro, Uweza's Managing Director the previous week at one of the girl’s forum and got to know about Uweza Foundation. While conversations took center stage, the two also inquired more how they could join the Uweza family, and that’s when Jennifer offered them the opportunity.

I did ask her the kind of new skills she would like to bring on board and. She smiles a little, then getting composed she answers back. “I want to mentor the girl child, walk with them, and make them understand who they are.” says Mukami. “That’s awesome,” I tell her back and wish her well.

Next is Vivian Njeri whom you could easily be mistaken that she is our office assistant if you were a first timer visitor. Sitting behind the office computer, she is digitizing some of the important documents that had been hand written for easier accessibility and also safe keeping of these records.

Her take is that she is happy to have gotten this opportunity to work in the Kibera community, get to know the target group involved and that by the end of the day, she looks forward to attaining some knowledgeable skills that can be ploughed back to the community.

And with that brief chat with the two new interns, we called it a day. Be on the lookout in our up-coming blogs where by more news on our new interns will be posted regarding their progress.

Welcome to the new Uweza tutor

by Thomas Bwire

Every parent’s dream is to give better education to their children as they grow up so as to be responsible people in the society. Education helps shape the society and people’s way of thinking as educated people are a valuable asset to the country. Thus as the New Year began, Uweza Foundation added a new tutor to help the youngsters of today gain valuable skills that will be beneficial in the future.

Uweza Foundation is thrilled to introduce Harriet Ruvaga as the new teacher for students in pre-school and classes 1 through 3. Harriet has a diploma in Early Childhood Development (ECD).She is passionate about her work as a teacher and is already down to work, this being her second week with the children.

I visited Gifted Hands Education Eenter situated in Gatwekera village, a distance of less than 10 minutes walk from the Uweza Community Center along Karanja Road, where I found Harriet down to business with her children. The center has given working space to Uweza to conduct remedial classes for lower primary and upper primary school children.

A little chat with Harriet gave me a little insight about her. “I am passionate about working with children from Kibera, as they are unique especially because of their background. Here I meet kids with poor backgrounds, slow learners, quick learners and by the end of the day my task is to ensure that they are at the same par regarding their school work” notes Harriet.

She also added that the few days she has been working with the kids from Kibera, she is amazed at how they manage their normal school routine programme and are still able join her in the evening for the Uweza programme. Currently kids in this programme are aged between ages 3 to 9years.  Some of the participating schools include Damside, Ayany and Olympic.

We wish her all the best as she joins the Uweza family and look forward to working with her.