Afrika Sports Foundation Center has embarked on a mass awareness campaign of various women groups towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but through the power of football.
The foundation through the Global Goals World (GGW) Cup East Africa will host an annual soccer tournament, to help create awareness and help solve women related challenges in line with the SDGs like poverty, hunger, and human rights among others.
This year’s tournament will be held at the KCCA StarTimes Stadium, Lugogo on Women’s Day (March 8), before the tournament moves to Amman in Jordan in April, Lagos, Nigeria in May and Prague, the Czech Republic on June 4.
The GGW Cup is an all-women 5-a-side tournament, that combines sensational and creative activism with football most spectacular.
The East African leg of the tournament was launched today afternoon at Lugogo, and speaking during the launch, localhost and CEO Afrika Sports Foundation Marian Mpaata, said that they look forward to having an exciting and educative engagement with women from all walks of life.
“It’s going to be an exciting time for the women, they shouldn’t stay at home on Women’s day,” Mpaata said in a briefing with the press.
“Uganda is privileged to be the host of the five East Africa Nations, it’s a great honour to show our passion,” she added.
Mpaata further underlined the objective of the tournament that is to create awareness around sustainable goals especially tackling the challenges of poverty and zero hunger.
She is calling for support towards the initiative, with teams from Tanzania and Kenya already showing interest in the tournament.
“One of the objectives of this tournament is to create awareness around the sustainable development goals which the UN and its member countries stipulated in 2016 that it should be achieved by 2030.”
“We still have 10 years and we have to put in a lot of effort. We want to overcome poverty and zero hunger.”
“This is an amateur tournament for Women above 18, who have not played football. We are heading to one vision and that is to make the world a better place and to use sport as a powerful tool to do that is a very exciting thing.”
“Come support the women, we have a team of grandmothers, we have a team of deaf women, come and support this cause. It will be exciting to meet our Kenyan and Tanzania sisters,” she added.
The GGW Cup is an all-women 5v5 football tournament and the winning team is the team that combines sensational and creative activism with football most spectacular.
To qualify as a team, you have to choose one of the 17 UN Global Goals to play and take action for. On match day, your 5-8 women team will play matches that last six minutes.
Eligible players to feature in the forthcoming event can come from Women groups and other organizations.
According to the organisers, 28 teams have already registered with six and two coming from Kenya and Tanzania respectively. However, a total of 35 teams are expected to participate in the event.
