Bring it on!

This week’s email comes from Busiwa Namwila and Irving Lukoma, Project Officers who helped facilitate this year’s NetGirls Zambia program! This is part of our Impact Girls initiative, to empower girls and young women through sport.

We had an exciting and highly competitive league this year divided in two categories, junior and varsity. The tournaments attracted a total of 48 teams split among four Zones; with each Zone comprising of 12 teams (6 junior and 6 varsity teams) with a total of 672 players registered. The games were played using the Round Robin method in each Zone for a period of 5 weeks from 25th September to 23rd October. After these rounds, the Quarter-Finals were played on the 30th of October. The winners in each Zone qualified for the Semi-finals which was played with an inter-zone competition on the 6th of November.

The winners in these semi-finals knock out went on to meet in the finals where the team named Smiling Kids emerged as junior champions after beating Chavisikwa. In the varsity league, team Achuche carried the day with an impressive track record of a 100% win from zone up to finals were they defeated Zakumana. By the end of the games, the winners and runners up in the zones each received cash prizes from Impact Network which were presented to them by the Katete Council Chairperson who graced the event as guest of honour.

The second component to the NetGirls season was a social program where each participant was given an opportunity to learn how to create re-usable menstrual pads and a drying bag for the laundry line. The teams were super excited with this addition, which lead to nearly 1500 pads being made. Not only did they get a chance to play the game they love so much this season, but they also had an opportunity to create the pads, which will serve them for many months to come. The terms expressed that; “The creation of a drying bag allows us to dry our pads in the sun without any shame because no one will be able to see what is inside. This bag, aside from providing privacy, also contribute to good personal hygiene because the pads will dry in the sun thus germs and other harmful bacterial will be eliminated. Re-usable pads are especially cost saving for us. With these we don’t have to spend extra money every month.”

Each year, it is inspiring to see these young women in action and we are thrilled to welcome them back to the field as we had to skip the 2020 season. Nice work ladies!

A special thank you to our partner One Day’s Wages for supporting the NetGirls League this year!

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