‘Strong Girls Safe Communities’
This slogan is the first thing you see when you walk into the Box Girls centre at Kariobangi, written next to a logo of two girls boxing. The energy in the place is young and energetic but with the giggles and softness that come with girlhood.
They take in girls between the ages of eight to twenty three, and with some of them being so young, you would expect all their sessions to be guided by the coach. But part of them being taught strength includes being taught leadership, of each other and themselves. So they lead their own warm up sessions, with a few of the girls taking turns guiding the rest, starting with stretches and a few light workouts to prepare their bodies for the two-hour boxing session to come.
Alred Analo, fondly referred to as ‘Priest’ started the idea of Box Girls after seeing how girls and women were most affected during the 2007/ 2008 post election violence (PEV). It started out without the centres, and they would meet in social halls. In 2022, they opened up the centre to serve the girls primarily, give them their own space where they feel safe to just be. There are four other centres; in Mathare, Korogocho, a boxing ring in Gikomba and the main office in Buru Buru.
They don’t only work in their centres, but they have partnered with thirty schools too in order to reach the girls who can’t make it to the centres. They work with twenty two schools in Nairobi and eight schools in Western Kenya, and each school gets a day with them to train their girls on boxing as a tool for fitness and self defense.
Lencer Akinyi works as a coach there. She started out as one of the girls who’d go to train there, when she was sixteen years old, and now she’s twenty eight. When the girls start out, the focus is mostly on boxing, and as they grow they are taught about sexual and reproductive health rights like body autonomy and get answers to any questions they may have. Then they get lessons on finances through an exit program called ‘Dada Cash’ which gives them employability skills like booking, beadwork, tailoring soap making and they’re taught about savings too.
For the girls to join the program, their parents have to sign a consent form, which is renewed each year. The one thing that this program is trying to deal with, is parents not seeing how beneficial the program could be for their young girls, so they are working to create awareness in the community.
It’s amazing to see how much confidence these sessions give the girls, not only in terms of their physical strength but for their mental agility too. They seem so sure of themselves- you can see it in their kicks and punches and hear it in their voices. Plus they are so happy in the community they have formed with each other.
We need to ensure that these girls, and many more feel this safe and confident even on the outside, in the real world. We need to make the city safe for all, no matter who they are and where they’re from.
Written by: Makena Ngito
Photos by: Edwin Ndeke