The Zambian football team empowering young women through joy

The sun was slow­ly set­ting and a lazy, gold­en glow hung as we stood on the main high street of the tiny vil­lage Kabam­ba, east Zam­bia. My co-pro­duc­er, Fan­ny, and I could see a hand­ful of young men tight­ly cir­cling around a friend get­ting his hair­cut with a pre­cise skin-fade. The fact that they all had fresh­ly-sharp hair­dos sug­gest­ed they had been there for some time.

We sat on a bench with our phones bal­anc­ing on our laps, plan­ning the sched­ule for our film project. But before we knew it, some of the men from the bar­bers had wan­dered over to see what we were up to. Oth­er passers-by did the same, and even cyclists stopped to have a look. Soon, dozens of peo­ple sur­round­ed us, while we tried to focus on our list. What had start­ed as Fan­ny and I sketch­ing out our plan quick­ly became a very enjoy­able col­lec­tive writ­ing process – some­thing akin to a vil­lage coun­cil meet­ing. Pret­ty much every­one walk­ing past that evening had now joined us, and they all had an opin­ion about who and what we should film.

Kabamba’s YEFI (Young Emerg­ing Farm­ers’ Ini­tia­tive) project had won the Equa­tor Award for their excep­tion­al­ly sus­tain­able approach to farm­ing. Clear­ly the peo­ple were com­mit­ted to improv­ing their agri­cul­tur­al meth­ods where they depend­ed sole­ly on solar pow­er to irri­gate their crops. But it soon emerged that they also had oth­er com­mit­ments of a rather dif­fer­ent kind.

There were about 15 peo­ple around us and we asked what the con­cept of ​‘com­mu­ni­ty’ meant to them. They dis­cussed this togeth­er in Nyan­ja, their local tongue, before trans­lat­ing to us. Unan­i­mous­ly the group shout­ed with a real sense of defi­ance: ​“Foot­ball and church!” Justin Nzonde, a teacher at the local sec­ondary school, stepped for­ward and said: ​“You have to see the girls play. Kabam­ba Express has a game next week.”

By now it was evi­dent that we need­ed to change our plans. It would be a crime to make a film about agri­cul­ture in Kabam­ba with­out doing all we could to also cap­ture the oth­er mean­ing­ful facets of Kabam­ba, such as foot­ball. I felt seduced by the pas­sion of the vil­lagers, and, as a mad foot­ball fan myself, I could not resist their invitation.

Justin explained that the moment Zam­bia secured its place in the Wom­en’s World Cup 2023, it saw a shift take place across the coun­try. Now women start­ed to claim their space on sports pitch­es all over Zam­bia. This was the first time that a Zam­bian team – men’s or women’s – had ever qual­i­fied for the World Cup.

Since then, thou­sands of Zam­bian com­mu­ni­ties have come togeth­er to cre­ate grass­roots teams, and the num­ber of girls and women play­ing is rapid­ly increas­ing. Zambia’s debut appear­ance at the World Cup had act­ed as a pow­er­ful cat­a­lyst that kin­dled a spir­it amongst its women to chal­lenge the inequal­i­ties that sport has seen in the country.

We shot our doc­u­men­tary about their inno­v­a­tive agri­cul­tur­al meth­ods, but the fol­low­ing Tues­day evening we began our walk along sandy paths to watch Kabam­ba Express. They were to play against a neigh­bour­ing vil­lage. We arrived at the local school, where just to the rear of the build­ing was a vast grassy plain – you could see for miles, lay­er upon lay­er of forests and fields, and dis­tant moun­tains beyond thin lay­ers of hazy light. In the near dis­tance was a foot­ball pitch marked with wood­en goal­posts. As we approached, the heat of the day was still present as groups of girls sat wait­ing in small pools of shade, chang­ing into their red or blue kit.

Mer­ci­ful­ly, the heat from the sun start­ed to cool and local coach, Soward Muson­da and teacher Justin walked with the girls into the cen­tre of the pitch. The ele­ment of inclu­siv­i­ty was so evi­dent in each team. Play­ers ranged from 12 to 18 years old. There were no gate­keep­ers to the space, only peo­ple who encour­aged play. Stand­ing around the cen­tre cir­cle, each team sang their team song. It was a cer­e­mo­ni­al moment as the play­ers stood togeth­er with pride. It was clear to me in that moment that this was much more than just a game – it was a space of rit­u­al, pas­sion and community.

Through­out the game there was an inten­si­ty as both teams played with real fight. On the perime­ter of the pitch the local com­mu­ni­ty watched, engaged, singing and cheer­ing on the play­ers. As goals went in there was a real sense of eupho­ria as play­ers cel­e­brat­ed with dance rou­tines, grin­ning from ear to ear. 

We came away from Kabam­ba feel­ing over­whelmed by the pow­er of sport to engen­der and bring out so many pos­i­tive aspects of human nature: con­nec­tion, joy, com­mu­ni­ty, togeth­er­ness, pride, and a sense of cer­e­mo­ny. Com­ing from a large city in the UK, it was also a plea­sure to expe­ri­ence the social cohe­sion we sensed in this small vil­lage. Every­one seemed to belong, to have a place, and had a sense of being held by the community.

Foot­ball in Kabam­ba has been a source of female empow­er­ment via joy. It has seen groups get togeth­er to do some­thing they love and that allows them to feel free. The sim­plest of games is hav­ing the most pro­found of impacts in places like Kabam­ba. When it is inclu­sive, foot­ball uni­fies peo­ple, builds com­mu­ni­ties, so is a tool to be high­ly val­ued – whether in a large city or in a tiny vil­lage like Kabam­ba. It is some­thing that can change people’s lives, and make them feel they belong.

A ver­sion of this sto­ry will appear in Huck 81, which is com­ing soon.

For more Sum­mer of Sport con­tent, click here.

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