This first football competition brought together 12 schools from UNICEF child friendly schools. These teams were selected from all over the country and were made of girls aged 7 to 13. The purpose of such an activity is to inculcate the culture of sport in the mentality of the Rwandan youth, much as a new culture can be ingrained from an early age, most girls and women will be able to campain against genderbased violence and their rights through sports as well as they grow up

The overall objective was to empower  women through sports. This event took place in four different Provinces namely Kigali City, Western, Eastern Pr I and Eastern II. Each Province had three primary school teams that competed and the winners were Kanyiya (from Kigali City), Rubona (Western Province), Rubona Ngoma (Eastern Province I) and Kiziguro (Eastern Province II). The 2 teams that came first received sports equipment (whistle, balls ...).

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Rwanda depends on agriculture, which is mostly done by women, so they grouped themselves in cooperatives and did the process of registration so that we may help them develop modern farming in order to fight poverty.

As you can see the teams that were ready to participate in a friendly match in the Northern provinces started by planting Irish potato seeds with many women that came to support the initiative that was brought over by AKWOS

The seeds were donated by Association of Kigali Women in Sports which organized the event and the winner received sports uniforms. It was an exiting moment after which the local leaders of that province donated a 5 hector land in support for the women football teams. This event took place on the 7th march 2011.

This idea came about after the workshop that took place in February 2011 on how to fight gender-based violence and campaign against poverty which was organized by AKWOS in partnership with WomenWin and Global Giving.

Many thanks goes  to the donors that do their best to support our organization. You are doing great things to promote Women in Gender Equity Through Sports.

We believe that if you educate a woman, you educate the nation.

It was an exiting moment to see more than 2000 women coming to cheer the game and about 500 men in our support which never existed before.

Is it possible to get a feedback from the donors? We need to hear the generous comments and advice from our donors. Tell us what you think about our activities. Thanks for being there for us.

These are the new captain  of schools that were attending the training of trainers course organized by AKWOS with the main objective of teaching them the role of sports for health and development .

It was a 5 day workshop with different lessons  such as children, rights, fight gender based violence, awareness in  the prevention of HIV and AIDS, Conflicts Resolution through sports.

In the workshop they were taught how they can become role models in using sports for social change. This training was opened officially by the Executive director  Mme Rwemarika Felicite and conducted by Nyinawumuntu Grace the National Women’s coach  who spoke  of her experience as role model and the rest were given by AKWOS coaches who are highly skilled in different topics mentioned

It was followed by the female teachers who were given training on the role of sports in promotion of gender rights ,Gender based Violence, unity and reconciliation and how to introduce many teams in schools and keep at least 30 minutes of giving different topics during the resting time and were asked to introduce a timetable for sports as it was realized that before they came for training they mentioned that they did not have time for sports.

AKWOS will do the monitoring and evaluation after 3 month, then organize competitions between the new teams with the funding from UNICEF and Right To Play .



In partnership with Right To Play/Rwanda we organized a football tournament that targeted school dropout girls from 35 sectors of Kigali City, aged between 15-25. The purpose was to mobilize them in matters relating to Reproductive Health, HIV AIDS & other diseases.

Also, we organized a walk/march for 150 women from 30 districts of the country (Rwanda), and a football tournament for 12 women teams& 8 men teams for the purpose of mobilizing Rwandan Women to be players in Good Governance and Democracy as they have power to make changes.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to all those who are directly or indirectly contributing to the successful achievement of our objectives. With your continued support we are quite sure that more will be achieved and challenges will be mitigated. Please let us know what you think about our project, and how we can strategically attract wider support.

With the Purpose of empowering women through sports, AKWOS in partnership with Global Giving and Mercy Corps , distributed Nike sport equipments to different women sport teams right from the grassroots. These included 60 rural women and girls sport teams from 20 selected Districts, 20 volley teams for women with disability, 30 primary school teams and 30 secondary school teams. This project has significantly increased the number of women teams with all basic equipments. We now have at least 20 volley teams for disabled women, within 20 Districts of the Country, there is in each District at least 1 football, Basketball and Volley ball team with all basic sport equipments, further more, so far in each District of the country there is a primary and secondary sport team with all basic sport materials.

The donation from Global Giving contributes a lot in the logistics activities when supplying sports materials to girls that have been identified as good players with no access to sports materials ,with the funds they are able to attend the training in time , refreshment and facilitates in mobilization of other girls that still has the culture mentality that sports is for boys.Many thanks goes to the donors from global giving for they have made a change in Rwandan Women’s mentality.

We are happy that Local Government Institutions continue to appreciate, our contribution to Women Empowerment through sports to the extent that AKWOS was awarded two tickets to go for the 2010 FIFA world Cup as a motivation to keep mobilizing women to participate in sport for social change.

Our program of promoting sports as catalyst for gender equity for social change needs to be strengthened and expanded so that it can benefit a large number of women. And for this particular case, we plan to advocate for the provision of more sports infrastructures, we plan to target many young girls in primary schools, to have trained coaches in all sports fields and all sectors of the country, and to conduct annual competitions for young girls in all sports fields at the whole country level.

An other impressive achievements so far, are the training of 50 primary schools women teachers from 50 rural schools in Gender Equity in Sports for Social Change. We can be proud of the positive impact this program have, where it led to the formation of girls associations for Anti-Aids, Anti-Gender Based Violence, Unity and Reconciliation Clubs and we now have young girls who were elected to be leaders, which were not the case before.

For the next 3 quarters, under this program we are organizing refresher training for 54 primary schools young girls and Interclass competitions. We really want to see rural schools in movement, girls with self confidence, with self esteem and hope for the future.

AKWOS is aware and thankful of the invaluable support of its donors and partners, and basing on that, we are confident that once again, with continued commitment by all of us, the challenges will be mastered and success will be assured. But please feel free to tell us what you think about our Project, what is needed to attract a wider support.

AKWOS organized a sport tournament themed: “promoting young girls’ legal rights through sports”. The tournament brought together young girls footballers in football competitions and the disabled girls and women in seat ball competitions. Prior to this, a basic football coaching course for 35 female coaches in Rwanda took place as part of women empowerment through sport for social change project. Basing on achievements so far made, we are strongly of the view that sports is the most successful tool for women empowerment for social change, by enhancing health and well being, fostering self esteem and empowerment, facilitating social integration and inclusion, challenging gender norms and providing opportunities for leadership and achievement. We are humbly calling up on different donors, to support us, so as to make our project successful. We also need your opinions, suggestions and comments on how we can work together to attract wider support, and by so doing, we will be contributing to women empowerment. We take this opportunity to thank all our supporters and partners, while requesting their continued support and partnership.

The E.Director/AKWOS shakes hands with one of the teams

When a child girl plays, the world wins

Manmeet Mehta and I spent a day with Felicite and Grace, learning more about them and the work they are doing. We visited two of the 29 schools where AKWOS has established programs and saw the girls in action. Since Alexis and Brian wrote a postcard about the work not too long ago let me offer a few different thoughts:

1. While it would be easy to view this work as "soccer for girls" the true power is in the social change AKWOS is making happen. Through conversations before or after every practice or game, these girls can learn about and discuss issues that they otherwise wouldn't touch.

2. Rwanda is an amazing place, just 15 years post-genocide. The ongoing commitment to, and investment in, reconciliation is palpable. AKWOS' work with girls includes conversations about differences and inclusion.

3. As much as the project is about the girls - it is about investing in a great social entrepreneur - Felicite Rwemalika. Felicite is a true rock star. She is the only woman on the national soccer federation board. She has organized events to bring awareness of the power of sport to engage and strengthen Rwanda's youth. She has the respect of NGO and Government leaders in Rwanda and around the world.

GlobalGiving is happy to be working with Nike and all the GlobalGiving donors who have supported this powerful work.

When asked what she would tell her friends about this project, Donna said: "Great: They are making a difference."

Alexis Nadin is a student at American University and former intern at GlobalGiving. This summer, she is travelling through Africa and visiting a number of GlobalGiving projects.

Alexis visited this project on May 29, 2009. She writes:

Location: Kaninya School, Rwanda

As we stood amidst throngs of students (many of which were boys) that had gathered to watch their female classmates play football, we joined the noisy cheering. At the Kanyinye School, two of the top girls teams, ages 8-12 years old, faced off in a match that could not have possibly happened without AKWOS, the organization implementing this project. According to Felicite, the director of AKWOS, when boys played sports in school, girls would be sent home to help their mothers. Thanks to AKWOS, schools across Rwanda now offer girls the opportunity to actively participate in sports. At this particular school, 134 girls play on 7 teams, two of which we saw. Coach Niyikora, trained by AKWOS, explained that not only are girls taught practical football skills, but practice time is also used to teach ways of fighting genocide mentality, prevention of HIV/AIDS, and women’s rights. According to the head teacher, the girls playing soccer are performing better in school, and they are more confident in class. Student captains of the two teams excitedly told us that because of AKWOS, they were able to travel around Rwanda for the first time.

Later in the afternoon, as we sat in the AKWOS office with the staff, we learned of AKWOS’ many other programs which are supported by GlobalGiving. Aside from starting women’s soccer leagues around the country and working on training 100 women coaches, they also empower women to get tested for HIV (bringing testing facilities to the matches). One notable program brings together wives of genocidiares and female genocide survivors for reconciliation through sports.

AKWOS has had a tremendous impact on soccer in Rwanda, even winning support of the national government for their programs. Not only has AKWOS created women’s teams countrywide, and empowered school girls to play sports, but AKWOS has brought about the formation of the national women’s team, and even helped train the coach for the national men’s team (a woman). It is undeniable that AKWOS is the reason that women in Rwanda can take an active role in sports.

Alexis said she would tell her friends this project was: "Great: They are making a difference."

GlobalGiving is committed to incorporating many viewpoints on our 600+ projects. We feel that more information, especially from eyewitnesses helps donors like you continue to support organizations doing great work in the community.

These are players of Rwandan W omen's football team rejoicing after winning a friendly match with players from Congo after a workshop on conflict resolution through sports. This is one of our objectives in empowering women through sports .It is well known that Congo was passing in difficulties due to the war that was taking place in Congo where women were the most vulnerable.It was named kick for reconciliation. We are targeting this region to promote peace.

This section covers the objectives of the project and then provides a background on the need for this project. The neccessity of this project is crystallised through four perspectives: having a role model, the international and national perspective and the gap that this project fills and the needs it addresses.

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In their 21/01/2008 consultative meeting women representing their associations in Sub-region. i.e:Congo Kinshasa, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania have created a Regional Initiative for Women Advancement through Spots (RIWAS) with the purpose of "Connecting to each other in many ways through sports in order to make use of all our resources and inner strength to create a good change."

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In line with empowering women through sport,the Association of Kigali Women in Sports(AKWOS) has organized a Training of 29 women Primary schools teachers on: Fighting against Gender based violence, HIV/AIDS prevention , Conflit resolution and football rules and regulations (both Practical and Theoritical)

training women

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