ISHA JOHANSEN INVITED ON THE BEYONCE CAMPAIGN PLATFORM FOR CHANGE

Football (soccer) is so much part of my life that I might as well say it’s part of my DNA. As a child and only daughter, growing up in Sierra Leone with my two brothers, I was the perfect definition of a tomboy.

I never owned a doll not to mention a doll house. I didn’t have a teddy bear or any of the cute pink cuddly accessories associated with being a girl. My favourite Christmas day presents of all times (I was born on Christmas day) were the latest model of a Raleigh bike, an assortment of sneakers, track suit bottoms and a table tennis racket. Yet, soccer goodies remained the privilege of my brothers even as we played together with other boys from the neighbourhood.

There was bullying (albeit harmless) and discrimination from my brothers and their friends who felt embarrassed by this impish sister dribbling past them and scoring at the slightest opportunity.

But my father (bless him,) is my oldest friend and greatest supporter. Indeed, I cannot imagine what my life will be like when the time comes for him to leave this world. He is a strong and alert 84 years- old despite losing his sight to glaucoma. A professional banker by profession, he was also chairman of one of the most successful and institutionalized football clubs in Sierra Leone called the East End Lions.

And he passed on to me his unconditional love for the club and the sport itself by taking me along to the national stadium and exposing me to the sometimes heated and emotive executive club meetings.

There, I learned about what makes a good football administrator and I experienced the emotional roller-coaster that comes with the job. I sometimes wonder whether despite having sons, he knew and felt that I would one day expand on our experience together, using football to empower and inspire our youth and my fellow women.

Either way, these early years of exposure to the sports became a lifelong inspiration empowering and lead me to my current life as an entrepreneur and club owner.

I was never motivated by the millions football generates nowadays. Instead, FC Johansen was born out of a humanitarian venture between my Norwegian husband and myself to help the young children, some displaced, some orphaned, who played football in the neighbourhood field, a few meters away from where we lived. 

Our bond with these boys gradually deepened and I offered to give them soccer balls, boots, and sports kits and promised to engage them in community youth leagues if they would at least try to stay in school.

The strategy paid off and before long, FC Johansen became one of the most successful team of Sierra Leone’s and indeed of West Africa. We travelled around the world taking part in competitions such as the Gothia Cup (Youth World Cup) in Sweden, the Mayors cup in Las Vegas, and played against the junior league of the Real Madrid, to name but a few contests.

My purpose was not just to give our youth and especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds a reason to dream and chase that dream, but also to educate the rest of the world about Sierra Leone. I wanted to prove that my country is more than a brutal war-torn nation, filled with child soldiers, and crippled by corruption. I went on to inviting other countries’ football clubs from Brazil, Norway, and other African countries to come to Sierra Leone for the African Youth International Tournament. Our players became young sports ambassadors for Sierra Leone with many young boys here now dreaming of becoming an FC Johansen player.

In 2011, I applied for the highest seat in football in my country less than a week before the application process closed. I didn’t take it seriously as I believed that most of my counterparts had spent years planning or strategizing for this position. I simply wanted to ruffle the feathers of the male candidates by challenging them to explain what they had actually done for soccer in Sierra Leone. 

I used a campaign billboard featuring FC Johansen and replicating the club’s mantra: Integrity, Discipline, Patriotism. To the shock of my male competition, I won despite all those who had branded me a disillusioned female with too much money and too little sense.

But my nightmare was only to begin as influence circles grouped and regrouped, political plots unfolded constantly, and for the past four years I have endured intimidation and sexist bullying to an extent that is difficult to convey. 

How I have managed to remain sane and/ or alive is anyone’s guess except to say that for every punch came the strength to absorb and endure the pain. I only grew stronger and was able to give hope to many women willing to challenge the world of male of governance.

Thus, my passion to help others is not limited to football or male youth. I also created foundations to raise the profile of women and help save lives. I became the first female publisher in Sierra Leone with a social magazine called Rapture Magazine. 

Unfortunately, the brutal war in Sierra Leone brought it to a standstill, and even though I tried to revamp it as a glossy magazine interviewing the likes of boxing legend Muhammed Ali and Somalian supermodel Iman, I was unable to sustain the cost of production. 

I then turned my efforts to publishing the first Sierra Leone inflight magazine called KABO. It promoted the country and its beauty. Again I was fighting against the recurrent reputation  of Sierra Leone as a tiny doom and gloom country.

From Kabo came the Women of Excellence Award celebrating the unsung heroines of the brutal civil war from all walks of life. We extended it to the sub-region celebrating and awarding Liberia’s former female President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf even before her country crowned her as Head of State.

One of the most fulfilling gender projects I engaged in, supported by my husband, was the Pink Charity Fund: a breast cancer awareness foundation for low or no-income women to access breast screening for free. Sierra Leone has had its fair share of tragedies. From one of the most brutal civil wars in modern history to the Ebola epidemic, followed by the mudslide flooding the capital last year.

All of which led me to divert rom my original mandate, (developing football) in order to support urgent disaster relief. This is how  Sierra Leone Football Association started campaigning to increase the awareness about Ebola.

I spearheaded a project involving FIFA and the likes of great football icons such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Leonel Messi and Didier Drogba among others. We promoted simple preventive measures to fight the Ebola virus. Then, there were two flooding incidents when we came to immediate rescue by providing food and clothing to the homeless survivors.

I also approached the UNICEF and local women market traders to partner with us to introduce sanitization in street markets by building water taps and toilets in largely populated areas. The funds were provided by FIFA and SLFA. The satisfaction of witnessing the difference we were making for these communities is unforgettable.

Throughout these experiences, I have become acutely aware of the extent to which natural disasters combined with poverty and lack of access to health care, employment and education disproportionately affect women in Africa.

Take pregnancy and childbirth for example. The birth of a child should be celebrated, instead it is the leading cause of death and injury for women in developing countries. In Africa, as of 2015, a staggering one in 22 women dies in pregnancy or childbirth. In the UK, it is just one in 8,000. While conditions such as high blood pressure, breech births, and hemorrhaging are relatively easily treated in the UK, African women are far more likely to die from any of these conditions

What about education? For many African girls, five years of education is the most they can expect to receive and those are the lucky ones. Across the continent, the number of girls between the ages of six and 15 who are not in school, many of whom will never even set foot in a classroom, is shocking.

Now, I am leveraging the power of sports to give women and girls a voice through an initiative called Power Play. I want to bring change-makers and inspirational global personalities from politicians, to academics, to lobbyists, entertainment personalities, and those in the world of football and sports to support African women.

With increased access to education, our young girls and women could run successful businesses, become health care workers, head schools, save lives and lead nations.

Women in my country excel because they always had to prove themselves that much harder having been marginalized forever.

Each one of them humbles me and truly inspires me to do my best in the name of sportsmanship and sisterhood.