While the Laureus World Sports Awards celebrated the greatest achievements of sportsmen and sportswomen, the evening also shone a light on the work of Laureus Sport for Good.
In Berlin to recieve the Laureus Sport for Good Award was Rachel Muthoga, Executive Director of the Laureus-supported Moving the Goalposts project. Moving the Goalposts uses football to empower young women and girls and tackle gender disparities in the rural Kenyan county of Kilifi, where over 60% of the population currently lives below the poverty line.
Working in some of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged communities, Moving the Goalposts uses football to develop essential life skills, leadership and self-esteem in vulnerable young women. The project also helps tackle some of the biggest issues facing the girls, including low retention in school, early and unwanted pregnancies and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS which trap them in a cycle of poverty.
Speaking after receiving the prestigious Laureus Statuette, Rachel reflected: “We use football as a tool, but it’s not the be all and end all of why we are doing what we are doing. We are trying to make leaders out of young girls and we believe that by giving them life skills and opportunities to practise leadership within the programme, that’ is what will make them successful future leaders.
Kenyans are fanatical about football and bringing girls into that platform of football also helps them to be seen in that positive light.”
Among the other Awards, the world’s top women’s tennis player Serena Williams has been named Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year, after a sparkling 2015 in which she won three Grand Slams. And, in an outstanding year for tennis, Novak Djokovic won his third Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award.
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