New girls soccer team unveiled… Kalingalinga forms new girls’ soccer team known as K-town Queens.

MUKWIMA CHILALA writes

A GIRL’S soccer team has been formed in Lusaka’s Kalingalinga Compound with a promise to produce quality players.

According to Africa On The Ball project manager Kelvin Chasauka the compound had lagged behind in terms of producing female soccer players.

Chasauka said Africa On The Ball, which was behind the formation of the new female soccer team, has produced good players in the male category in the past 10 years.

He said Africa On The Ball was a non- governmental organization (NGO) managing a Kalingalinga based girls soccer team called K-town Queens.

He told the Sun Sport in an interview that his organization decided to come up to a girls’ soccer team in order to empower the girls in Kalingalinga and surrounding communities.

He said the move had helped girls in the community in becoming role models for themselves and their followers.

“The biggest motivation was for us to engage the girls , to empower them not only to become role models but we know that when they are active in terms of playing football they can actually become role models for themselves and to their followers,

“In the actual sense we are just also creating self-playing space for the girls and also creating opportunities for them because as you may know girls lag behind where competition and play time is concerned,” he said

Chasauka further said besides playing soccer, the girls were also involved in the outreach programme in which they did sport and life skills activities in e communities as well as schools.

He noted that most of them were being sponsored in schools by Africa On The Ball to motivate them to continue playing soccer while also pursuing their education

He said that one way his girls team would give back to the community was by doing one hour voluntary work, twice a week in different schools and orphanages.

The K-town Queens has been running for the past three weeks and it was inspired by one their partners from the UK who had been working with the team.

Chasauka said that despite the project being new, it had the privilege of sending four of its girls to the recently conducted Zambia national soccer team Under-17 trials.

He described the development as a milestone for his team as it would motivate more other girls to be actively involved in the sport.

K Queens is an under -16 girl’s team affiliated to Africa On The Ball, an organization that focused on sports development based in Lusaka’s Kalingalinga Compound where it trained from the community’s soccer ground.