Adele Bruggeman, the founder and founding director of non-profit Activate Her, wants to normalise sports for young girls — from the moment they reach school age — by encouraging a culture of play and healthy competition. Through partnership with different schools and support from Women Win (a group at the forefront of sports development and advocacy for the inclusion of girls in sports activities), Activate Her has been able to use sports as a space where girls can access knowledge and gain tools for them to succeed in their lives. The organisation is dedicated to transforming its young members into active participants in their communities. 

UNICEF Innocenti’s 2019 study, Getting into the Game, found that sports can have a positive impact on children’s lives in the areas of education, social inclusion, child protection and empowerment. It emphasises in its introduction that, “sport is a powerful tool for involving all children — including the most marginalised and vulnerable — in group activities from an early age.” This is why development organisations, like Activate Her, use it as a tool for changemaking.

Bruggeman grew up playing football and lacrosse. She came into the sports and development space after moving to South Africa and realising how limited the opportunities were for girls to access sports. Having had the privilege, as she describes it, to participate in various athletic activities, she realised how beneficial the skills she acquired had been to her, even beyond the sport. “I think in my day-to-day life, all the skills I’ve learned through sports have been key factors in my personal and professional success,” says Bruggeman. “So many opportunities can be unlocked and created through play, and it has a holistic positive impact in your life in terms of physical health, mental health, and social wellbeing.”

Despite the benefits that sports have in young girls’ personal development and wellbeing (as well as it being a vehicle for peace nation building,) opportunities remain largely inaccessible to girls, especially those in low-income communities. 

While engaging in development work in different communities, Bruggeman noted that boys were always outside with their footballs playing a game. She wondered, “Where are the girls?” As a woman whose childhood was centred around play and movement, she was determined to overcome some of the most important barriers that girls faced in South Africa and unlock the same opportunities for them that she had benefited from.

A study, carried out by the Ntwanano Alliance Kubayi around schoolgirls in the Limpopo province of South Africa, found that the five most common constraints for girls to participate in sports were: dress codes, lack of energy, lack of family support, a perception that participating in sports was not part of their culture, and family commitments. Another study on the politics of gender expands on the ways patriarchal norms manifest in the context of chronic poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, and gender roles often take precedence over sports and exercise in girls’ and women’s life, especially within low-income groups. Before founding Activate Her, Bruggeman observed the same situation in the communities she worked in. She says, “Girls have a ton of household responsibilities. The moment they leave school they’re doing childcare, or making food, or they’re cleaning the house.” 

Gender-based and sexual violence are other major contributors to the gender gap in sports. Across the world we hear anecdotes of women being harassed while going for runs, or at gyms; the fear of harassment has often stood in the way of women working out. According to Bruggeman, South Africa's high rates of domestic violence and femicide ends up being a huge barrier in the communities that Activate Her works in.

Gender disparities are compounded by income disparities. While middle and high-income populations in South Africa access sporting facilities and activities with relative ease, the barriers for girls and young women in underserved communities are often inhibitive. In South Africa, 55 percent of the population lives in poverty, and many lack the opportunities to enjoy sports like Bruggeman did. According to her, many public schools in South Africa, though physical education programming is supposed to be provided in principle, often is not. Usually, she says, it is because teachers are required to stay behind after classes to provide activities, but their efforts often go unpaid, or they do not feel valued in their work. Coupled with the financial challenges faced by many households, families are often not able to pay for external extracurricular activities.

What began as occasional sports days that encouraged girls to join, became Activate Her, an organisation that centred on movement in their lives on a regular basis. Bruggeman shared she had seen the need to “provide safe spaces for girls to be able to play, because it’s a critical piece of children’s development, regardless of the sport or their ability.” Activate Her is trying to make sure that those spaces exist. As more and more girls participate in the activities she provides through partnerships with different schools, they are actively combatting the sexist norms that excluded them from sports in the first place.

Confidence, communication, and teamwork are some important interpersonal skills that sports-centred development organisations aim to instil in the target groups. With the opportunity to be team leaders and communicate with their team members, the girls have the chance to learn important lessons that translate into other parts of their lives.

Bruggeman shares one of her favourite anecdotes to describe the impact of Activate Her on its young participants. “We were running a session and practising our throwing and our catching as a team. There was one girl who, when it came to her turn to catch the ball said, ‘I can’t do it! I’m not going to catch it!’ She was so worried that she would drop the ball and be embarrassed.” Gender stereotypes about girls’ abilities begin from a young age, and the fear of not being good at sports, or any mistake made during activities often stands in the way of girls participating at all. Bruggeman continues, “Her friend was standing next to her and she told her, ‘You are strong! You are confident! You can do this!’ That’s what a coach usually says but this time it was her peer telling her that she could do it, and that’s the environment that we are trying to cultivate. Even if she dropped the ball, she would be fine. So, the little girl opened her hands and caught the ball when her friend threw it, and everyone in the class celebrated.”

Older women, who may not have benefitted from sports development interventions, often lack the confidence to apply for a coaching position which Activate Her is advertising. Having local women coaching is an important part of the sustainability of the programmes because it creates a sense of local ownership. It also provides job opportunities for South African women, who bear the brunt of the country’s unemployment rate. “It’s a bit of a challenge because it requires being physically active with knowing how to manage children and a classroom, but I think largely it’s about reframing what we think sport is. It's going to be a huge learning experience for us and we have to try to figure out how to make more spaces to have amazing coaching, and how do we get more women into these positions,” Bruggeman says.

But the future for Activate Her is bright, as the programme is committed to offering meaningful leadership opportunities that are sustainable and can lead participants to becoming coaches.

Running Activate Her has been challenging because of COVID-19 given school closures and social distancing measures. “Sport is always tricky when you have to do social distancing and wear a mask when little kids just want to play,” Bruggamen says. However, what did come out of it is the rising attention given to mental, physical and emotional health, and social wellbeing — sports was a good way of addressing all of them. During lockdown it became more important than ever for children—and everyone else—to keep moving to avoid lockdown-related health declines.

Bruggeman hopes the work of Activate Her prior to the global pandemic has had a positive impact on the girls, so that they could participate in activities from the safety of their own places. “They can get up and stretch their bodies or do jumping jacks or some of the fun things we do, they could just do it at home,” says Bruggeman.

She is also determined to show the girls that even though sports can be exclusionary because of the costs associated with some equipment, it doesn’t always have to be a barrier to them being active. “Of course, as a young woman you need a sports bra to participate, but it’s important to remember that we don’t always need all this gear,” says Bruggeman. “Yes, it’s nice because it contributes to your confidence, but for example, shoes are not always necessary. We don’t wear shoes for our games. We can still play without all the gear, and it’s important not to get held up and let these things stop you.”

COVID-19 has been a challenge for the organisation’s financial security since they have not been able to do programme implementation, but because they are a financially lean organisation, they are adaptable. “We use — and we will continue using — socks as our balls because we don’t need to buy balls. I want our programmes to be scalable so that we can implement it at a low cost and reach as many girls as possible and it’s a resource that’s accessible in the community.”

With successive lockdowns, Bruggeman says that it has been difficult to plan for what’s next, but the pandemic has re-emphasised the importance of health and wellness for her and the community. “It has the biggest impact on the marginalised communities that we work in that just don’t have choice,” she says. “Health is such a key element for people to be able to live their lives and be successful.”

ActivateHer are part of ONSIDE, a fund that seeks to support a sustained feminist movement that re-imagines and transforms sport. Managed by Women Win, ONSIDE is a pooled fund supported by Nike and other funders finding new solutions to advance gender justice. Nike partners with Women Win to build equity through sport for all. To learn more about Women Win and Nike’s community partners, please visit Nike Give. 

This story is featured in the AMAKA-Zine. Click here to read the full digizine.