Interview: Sport is the most important tool to enable peace building

Interview with Mariam Twahir

To Mariam Twahir it is clear: sport is the most important tool to enable peace building. In the second largest slum of Africa, she acts as a coach to a group of 60 youth once a week. ‘When I see that girls become involved in the different activities, I feel true change is achieved in a community’.

On a training field on the edge of Kibera, a group of school children has come together to do some sports exercises. Mariam Twahir will not participate today, as she just gave birth to her third child. Usually, every Thursday from 4 to 5.30 PM, she coaches a group of 60 youth. Mariam and her husband Ben Ooko are the driving forces behind Amani Kibera, a peace building organisation that was found just after the violence in Kenya during 2007 election time. Kibera is the second largest slum in Africa. The district is situated in the southwest of the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Estimations on the number of citizens vary between 700,000 and over 1 million people.

Amani Kibera uses sports, fashion and reading as tools to promote peace among youth from different ethnic backgrounds. The philosophy is simple: if people get to know each other and participate in activities together, prejudices disappear and violent outbursts in the future can be avoided. These people are then less susceptible for provocation from politicians that often use warlike language during elections time.

Recently, Amani Kibera has started the campaign Stones4Peace to collect stones. In the past, stones were mainly used to throw at each other and at the police, now they are used to build a new community house, together. It cannot get more symbolic than that.

Unprecedented enthusiasm

Mariam embodies sports. Talking about sports brings about an unprecedented enthusiasm within Mariam. ‘If you have performed well in sports, or have just had a fun afternoon session, it immediately has a positive effect on how you feel and if you feel good about yourself’, she says. As a role model, she mentions her husband, Ben, ‘who has improved the quality of many lives in Kibera’ - although she does not agree with his support for Arsenal instead of Manchester United, like her. Her other role model is tennis player Serena Williams. ‘Serena does not only believe in herself, but also goes beyond herself to help the less fortunate in society.

As biggest achievement for Amani Kibera, Mariam names the changing of the mentality of a lot of people. ‘We bring people from different ethnic backgrounds together during football tournaments and our sports activities. They play football together without any conflict or without their background influencing the game. When they are on the field, they forget where they are from, all that matters is the game itself. Sport is really the most important tool in building peace’.

Mariam herself also grew up in Kibera, in a family with six children. After her secondary school education, she started working to be able to afford education in the evenings. Mariam has diplomas in Fashion and Design, and in Corporate Information and Communication Technology. Within Amani Kibera, she is the coordinator of the Uwezo Girls Empowerment programme in which she supports 20 fashion students. ‘I have always wanted to work with girls in my own community’, she says. ‘When you make a woman self-conscious, you empower the whole society. When I see that girls become involved in the different activities, I feel there is real change happening in the community. Also, when girls are active in sports activities, I know that they will go home and tell their families what they have learned on the pitch at the end of the day’.

Peaceful community

Mariam talks about Kibera with lots of love. Together with her husband Ben, she sees it as her task to change the perception of Kibera. A lot of citizens of Nairobi, associate slums with crime and violence. Mariam looks at this differently. ‘Kibera consists of 13 different neighbourhoods. People from many different ethnic backgrounds are represented, which is often perceived as problematic. I would like to turn this around. For me, that is what makes Kibera vibrant and cosmopolitan. I love Kibera because it has a sense of neighbourhood. We live in an area called Olympic. When you have nothing left to eat, you can always knock on your neighbour’s door. In Kibera, people look after each other. I would never want to live in a neighbourhood where the houses are secured by fences. Kibera is a peaceful community’.

Even so, this has not always been the case. After the president elections of 2007, there were a lot of outbursts in Kenya related to ethnicity, which led to thousands of deaths. Especially slums such as Kibera and Mathare Valley experienced many explosive situations, as people from different ethnic backgrounds live together in these areas.

‘During the previous elections, two years ago, it was far from as bad as in 2007’, says Mariam. ‘In 2007, the youth was truly abused by politicians that would turn people against each other. Nowadays, we have a young population that is much more resilient and self-conscious, and therefore determined to uphold the peace. Just look at how many youth participate in our (sports) activities as peace ambassador. Look at how many youth from Kibera form youth groups to create a better society, for example for cleaning their environment or collecting rubbish for recycling. I think that these positive values are being generated from home and from the sports field, which is leading to youth making the right choices.’

Few obstructions

Mariam mentioned it already: the sports field. She is very happy that, through Amani Kibera, she can apply her passion of sports. The group with whom Mariam leads a sports activity every week, exists out of 35 girls and 25 boys. Mariam sees few specific obstructions for girls when it comes to participating. ‘When talking about obstructions for women to participate in sports, I think that problem is greater in professional sports than on a community level. In my opinion, it would be great if our professional clubs or if our national football team would have a female coach. But even in the Netherlands you don’t see that. On a community level, girls can easily participate and there are just a few hindrances. When it does occur that they drop out earlier than boys, reasons are often teenage pregnancies or early marriage.

‘Sometimes, it happens that parents object against their daughters participating in sports activities’, she continues. ‘We then go and talk to them and explain how important doing sports is for their daughter. We tell them that it is important for the development of the bones and muscles of children, and that physical activity is good for your brains and also leads to better performances in school. Therefore, doing sports is important for your future academic development and thus also for the position you will have in society.’

‘We also reinforce the psychological aspect. Youth that do sports, often do not end up on the wrong path. We have seen that the youth that are active with sports, are often the ones developing the skills that lead them to becoming important mainstays in their community. Parents are especially susceptible to these arguments.’

Real change

Soon, when the baby has grown to be a bit bigger, Mariam will continue with her work and with facilitating the weekly sports lessons. ‘Sports is the best way to transfer life lessons to youth’, she says. ‘Nowhere else are youth presented with more life skills, than during sports activities. Doing sports gives them self-confidence, teaches them to communicate assertively, stimulates leadership and a sense of responsibility, and also enables time management. We also teach youth how to handle their emotions and how to control themselves. When you are angry with someone, starting to go at them is not the answer. At this point, one should really talk with one another’.

The evaluations are especially enjoyable for Mariam. ‘We evaluate how the game went and start talking to each other. Youth learns most of these reflective conversations. They really go on about the experience. All these experiences lead to change within the youth, but also within the community.

The final question, whether it is different for her as a woman than for example for a male coach, is dismissed laughingly. ‘I see me being a woman not as an obstacle. The most important thing is, and this is also my tip to Dutch coaches, that youth listen to you and accept you as a coach. When they do that, it really does not matter if you are a male or a female.’

This story is collected and written by a partnership between Vice Versa and ISA