Football can be a lifeline to so many people. It is more than just a game, it’s a connection between millions of people around the world. It is passion, it is perseverance, it is dedication, it is happiness, it is heartache- but most of all, football is a community.
In 2019, Australian and Atletico Madrid midfielder, Alex Chidiac, joined Common Goal, a movement of professional football players with a shared mission to build a future in which football becomes the world’s greatest catalyst for social change.
She pledged 1% of her salary to support Moving the Goalpost’s (MTG), a unique sport for development organization that uses football to empower over nine thousand girls in the rural and urban areas of Kenya’s Coastal region. A girl born into a poor family in these regions inevitably enters a cycle of poverty. A girl in these families is less likely to be educated than her brothers, less likely to access the health care needed, less likely to control family finances or inherit land, and less likely to have a voice in the social and political systems that will shape her life. This girl is faced with a shrinking world, with fewer choices, rather than expanding opportunities.
In late 2019, one of MTG girls, Rhodah Mwaka wrote a letter to Chidiac explaining the many challenges that girls and young women in her community faced during menstruation. Mwaka stated that some of them were forced to stay at home during menstruation instead of going to school since they did not have enough money to afford sanitary pads. She added that other girls offered sexual favors to men in order to get sanitary pads, exposing themselves to the risk of early pregnancies or even Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).
Chidiac was deeply touched and vowed to take action immediately. ‘I started to educate myself on these issues. I learnt this problem affects many women all over the world and that there are some incredible organizations fighting this cause. I want to make sure that girls know that being a woman should never stop them from achieving their goals’, she remarked.
In early August, Chidiac launched an initiative to raise funds to provide these girls with re-usable sanitary pads from AFRIpads by selling Tunaweza t-shirts that she personally designed. Each pad sold will go towards the purchase of reusable pads for three girls, and will help them manage their monthly cycle in a more dignified and healthy way during this #COVID19 pandemic and beyond.
This shirt represents a continuation. A continuation of the work that is being done across the world, through football. To continue to educate and inspire. To continue to support those who need it most. To keep fighting these challenges together.
You can support this initiative by purchasing the Tunaweza t-shirts via: https://bit.ly/2QpI0jf or simply spreading the word.
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