FLORENCE FUNDI EMPOWERING WOMEN THROUGH SPORTS
Her passion and belief in the power of sports to harness societal transformation honored her serving as a Basketball Referee under the Kenya Basketball Federation and a basketball coach.
Enabling her to be at
the forefront in initiating and running programs and initiatives that use
basketball as a tool to inspire access to quality education, empower women and
leverage sports as a game-changer for societal transformation.
While on campus she
served as the captain of the school basketball team for two consecutive years
where she was able to work with her teammates to steer outstanding performance
and reach the national level of the Kenya Universities Sports Association
games.
She started off volunteering as a
basketball referee and coach in Kenyan Basketball Federation games. Since all
the games happened in Mombasa and she studied in Taita Taveta County and she
couldn’t afford the travel every weekend; her friend (Abigael Kinini) started
an ‘uji’ business where they could wake up in the dawns of the day and prepare
‘uji’ to sell to fellow students at Taita Taveta University for breakfast so as
to earn an increased revenue to sustain while in school.
Upon earning the
income, she would go and offer her services on a volunteer basis as a
basketball referee because this was something that she really loved. “This
found me currently being a licensed basketball referee with the Kenya
Basketball Federation and also accorded me selection in October 2018 to take
part in a FIBA Basketball”. She added.
Florence Mkang’ondi Fundi, with over five
years of experience in community development and sports entrepreneurship. Currently
serves as the Youth Governor of Taita Taveta County, and the Deputy Country
Director of Africa is Priorities (P & O) Africa in Kenya, where her role is
to identify, nurture, share career progression opportunities to build capacity
among the youth of Taita Taveta County and Kenya at large; molding and
preparing them into becoming transformational leaders of influence in their
areas of jurisdiction.
“Through the
initiative, I have played the role of a mentor in encouraging them to take up
professional careers in sports and challenge the status quo at hand. This
vision was born as I was among the few women and youth generally in my
community who was able to acquire access to quality education. To top it all,
basketball has enabled me to access myriads of opportunities over the years”
she explains.
Fundi; founder of the
Taitan Hoops, which is a social enterprise that uses basketball as a tool to
ensure that her community is accorded access to quality education and economic
empowerment. “In 2017 we started off our operations as a Community Based Initiative
up until this year, 2019 when we registered as a Social Enterprise”. She added.
“Our operations have
been centered on holding basketball camps, tournaments, and fora to ensure the
young women and girls to access opportunities for their career progression”.
She said.
Role of sports in building societies and role
of women in societal transformation lead by the acknowledgment that
participating in sports can benefit girls and women by building their
self-esteem, challenging gender stereotypes, providing opportunities for
leadership together with enhancing health and well-being.
Taitan
Hoops has witnessed that once the women and girls are provided with the
opportunity to participate in sports, they benefit significantly from the
economic, emotional, and physical self-determination through life skills,
education, promotion of women’s rights, income generation, and for peace and
reconciliation.
They
are able to develop values of teamwork, collaboration, drive, confidence, and
self-esteem. These skills and values easily translate into the workplace and
can serve useful once they get into the workplace environment.
In a society and community where the transition rate of girls from primary school to high school and further to the tertiary level is extremely low, where teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS records
are on the rise and where access to quality education with alarmingly high
illiteracy rates among many other challenges result in girls and young women
being directly denied progression opportunities.
This is the societal norm in
Taita Taveta County, a geographical area that is considered one of the
marginalized areas in Kenya. Thus, Taitan Hoops uses basketball to encourage
young women and girls to attend school as they make them aware of the
opportunities that await them.
“The most important thing about
Taitan Hoops is that it has ensured championing for sustainable development
goals (SDGs 3, 4 and 5) since the young women and girls’ are now able to take
an active role in advocating for their own access to quality education because
sports has helped them understand that what men can do, they too can do it and
even better, indeed a ripple effect has been created”. She added.
Adding that the standards of academic
performance of women in her community had immensely improved with the current
increase in the transition of the young women and girls from primary school to
high school. “This is to say that all the over 200 young women who are our
beneficiaries were able to record an improved performance that earned them a
place in high school. Additionally,
while at school the women have had increased performance improvement and more
of them have now taken up leadership positions as classroom representatives, a
role which they have previously shun away from”. She said.
Fundi who is a holder
of a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce has
worked to see the current record of increased numbers of women and girls
outperforming the young men and boys in school; an achievement which she
thought was by far a long stretch. This all proves to her that the journey has
just begun and that she would not sit back and watch her fellow community
members being denied their basic needs as she sits around and watched.
“The vision of Taitan
Hoops is to build a community of leaders through sports, women who will have
access to quality education, have a voice to inspire the change that they
desire to see, have the courage to dream and the zeal to work until
actualization of their dreams to build transformed communities”. She added.
Inspired by the wise words of the late Nelson Mandela,
“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has
the power to unite people in a way little else does. It speaks to youth in a
language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only
despair. It is more powerful than the government in breaking down racial
barriers. It laughs in the face of all kinds of discrimination."
Fundi envisions a society where
gender inequality and youth voices will no longer be an issue in need of
lobbying and advocacy but that they will be entrenched into governance systems.
Her aspiration is to inspire youth and women to realize their potential in
creating the change they desire to see. She hopes to inspire a ripple effect of
transformed women and youth leaders in her community through access to quality
education and opportunities for economic empowerment.
Fundi acknowledges and believes in
the innovation, energy, passion, and drive that youth are equipped with for the
nation's economic development. Thus, her operations revolve around seeking
means of how youth can acquire skills and sustainable means for social
entrepreneurship.
Fundi
is currently the Human Resource Officer in the Department of Education and
Libraries in the County Government of Taita Taveta, where she works to serve
over 960 staff in the Department on a daily basis.
She was honored to represent Taita Taveta County and Taitan
Hoops in the 3rd National Youth Leaders Convention in Nairobi in April 2018.
She is also a fellow of the Young African Leadership Initiative Program (YALI)
for East and Central African young leaders, a Global Peace
Ambassador, a UNITE2030 Ambassador, a Commonwealth Open Source Leader and a
scholarship recipient of the UNITE 2030 Summit 2019: Kick Out Discrimination by
Chelsea Football Club, WJC and L.A.C.E.S.
she is also the recipient of the Outstanding Changemaker
Award during the Summit and a Finalist in the 2019 Governors Start-up
Challenge. She is currently taking part in the inaugural batch of the African
Presidential Leadership Program by The President of Egypt H.E. President Abdel
Fattah El Sisi in the National Training Academy in Cairo, Egypt.
She has embarked on the
journey towards understanding policy making, policy implementation, and policy
analysis in order to ensure that policies put in place will promote effective
and efficient operations of sports entities for greater impact.
This zeal led her to
gain certification in policy by the British Council in the course of Ideas for a Better
World: Leading Change through Policymaking. The determined
soul hopes to pursue her Master’s degree in Public Policy and Good Governance
in order to broaden her understanding.
The journey has been a great one but according
to Fundi, she must say that there has been a number of challenges along
the way. Her biggest challenges have been finding the balance between the corporate world and
her life at Taitan
Hoops, financial challenges for running the
activities.
“I mean, I vividly remember having to stop
operations because I couldn't
afford to pay transport for myself and the
volunteers to go and train
the team of players and to purchase sports
equipment to promote the
training. One person who really had my back and
I live to appreciate him
is Mr. Antony Ojukwu; the Head Coach of the
Kenya Ports Authority (KPA),
a team who I have had the pleasure to be coached
by in the game of
basketball played a mentorship role to me and
also helped to provide
Taitan Hoops with basketballs which promoted a
successful turn of events
during the 1st edition of the Taitan Hoops
Basketball Camp and beyond” she added.
She lives to appreciate these challenges because
they played a big role in
the steps she has made to date and steps that
she believes she is yet to make.
She has been a member
of Rotary International since 2013 where she has served as the International
Service Director of the Rotaract Club of Taita Taveta University and the Deputy
President of the Rotaract Club of Voi.
This was an
avenue to share with her community through children's home visits to have fun
days, street clean-ups as a measure towards environmental conservation,
hospital visits, youth professional development programs, women empowerment
programs and networking platform with fellow Rotaract members.
“Every moment of the volunteerism gives me so much
joy and gives so much meaning to life”. She added.
When I asked her what advice can she give to the
youth? She was quick to answer “Take initiative! You are endowed with so many
skills and abilities to offer this world. I mean, you all have something
special within you that distinguishes you from the rest of the pack. Find your
passion and work towards it. If you work your passion, you'll never work a day.
For me, passion has been a driving force to get myself out there. Passion is
the adrenaline that keeps us going; that keeps us motivated to keep going”.
My family and friends have been my greatest point of support throughout this journey.
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