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| Mary |
Mary is a 13 year old who lives in Chainda compound, Lusaka with her birth mother, her five brothers and two sisters. Her father has died. She has a very beautiful wide awake smile when she stands there and talks and she laughs a lot. She joined the DSA in 2013 after hearing about the academy from her friends and now plays as a central defender for the girls team.
Mary explained to me that if she was not playing football then she would be working selling fruit on the local village market stall with her mother, a job I imagine, with that smile, she is very good at. She doesn't attend school. Although she did complete a year in Grade 5 she didn't pass the end of year tests and now her mother has no money to pay the school fees. They are around £30 per year.
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| DSA lasses team |
Many girls of Mary's age and in similar circumstances get married. There are rules but these are not always strictly followed or enforced. Girls in the compounds commonly become sexually active from as young as 10 years old and marriage is a way to relieve the poverty on the family and relatives they live with. None of this helps with the Aids and HIV situation and often exacerbates other health and social challenges facing those in extreme poverty in urban Zambia. Many girls and families are faced with little or no alternative.
Mary told me that she really wanted to go back to school and asked for some money to do so. Her favourite subjects there were English and Maths. Everybody, or so it seems, likes English and Maths. She explained that the academy needed jerseys, boots, footballs and stockings. Her favourite teams are her own Dynamic Stars and the Zambian national team.
I hope she goes to school again because I could really tell she wanted to when I sat and s[poke to her.
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