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Play Like a Girl: How a Soccer School in Kenya's Slums Started a Revolution
Growing up and living in Kibera, Kenya, Abdul Kassim was well aware of the disproportionate number
of challenges faced by women due to the extreme gender inequalities that persist in the slums. After
being raised by his aunts, his mother, and his grandmother and having a daughter himself, he felt
that he needed to make a difference.
In 2002, Abdul started a soccer team for girls called Girls Soccer in Kibera (GSK), with the hope of
fostering a supportive community and providing emotional and mental support for the young women
in the town. The soccer program was a success, but the looming dangers of slum life persisted, and
the young women continued to fall victim to the worst kinds of human atrocities. Indeed, it was the
unyielding injustice of these conditions that led Abdul to the conclusion that soccer alone was not
enough to create the systemic changes needed. In 2006, the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA) was
established to begin to help create those changes, and it continues its work today.
of challenges faced by women due to the extreme gender inequalities that persist in the slums. After
being raised by his aunts, his mother, and his grandmother and having a daughter himself, he felt
that he needed to make a difference.
In 2002, Abdul started a soccer team for girls called Girls Soccer in Kibera (GSK), with the hope of
fostering a supportive community and providing emotional and mental support for the young women
in the town. The soccer program was a success, but the looming dangers of slum life persisted, and
the young women continued to fall victim to the worst kinds of human atrocities. Indeed, it was the
unyielding injustice of these conditions that led Abdul to the conclusion that soccer alone was not
enough to create the systemic changes needed. In 2006, the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA) was
established to begin to help create those changes, and it continues its work today.
Audio CD
Published August 8, 2017
15 people are currently reading
335 people want to read
About the author
Ellie Roscher
12 books44 followersEllie Roscher is the author of Fair Game, Remarkable Rose, The Embodied Path, 12 Tiny Things, Play Like a Girl and How Coffee Saved My Life and the host of the Unlikely Conversations podcast. She teaches writing and yoga in Minneapolis. Her writing can be found in the Baltimore Review, Inscape Magazine and elsewhere. She edits the Keeping the Faith series: Keeping the Faith in Seminary, Keeping Faith in Rabbis and Keeping the Faith in Education. Ellie holds a master's degree in Theology/Urban Ministry from Luther Seminary and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is a certified yoga teacher.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 9, 2017
Everyone who’s read my reviews for a few years knows I love me a good inspiring sports story.
This book was not exactly what the title or cover seem to promise. I thought the focus was going to be on empowering girls through athletic training and accomplishment. Instead, soccer makes a sort-of frame for the story, but is pretty peripheral.
That does not detract from the power of this book, at all.
The story begins with soccer, as Abdul Kassim starts a team for girls in Kibera, a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi. Because the slum is not recognized as an official extension of the city, it gets no services. People have to construct their own houses; almost no one can afford indoor plumbing. The poverty is dire; they’re mostly surviving on $1US a day or less. Many of them are living on one meal a day, and not a terribly nutritious one, either.
Girls, in particular, feel the brunt of the grinding poverty. According to this book, Kenya had free public education until the 1980’s, when the country took a Structural Adjustment loan from the World Bank, which imposed conditions such as requiring that all schools charge tuition. The number of children being educated dropped dramatically as a result. (How this is supposed to “improve” a country is beyond me.) So parents were willing to send boys to school if they could scrape up the tuition money, but they weren’t so interested in paying to educate daughters. Girls in Kibera are often married off as soon as they start menstruating. If they aren’t married, they find themselves at the mercy of boys who have jobs and can afford to buy menstrual pads, which they then offer to girls in exchange for sex (with the predictable result that a large number of girls end up pregnant or infected with HIV). The combination of a lack of education plus this underground pad economy which allows young men control over young women puts girls in a terribly disadvantaged position, even beyond the poverty issues.
Abdul realized that the girls on his soccer team needed a free school if they were to reach their full potential. They also needed food. And free menstrual products. He set out to provide all of those things, and the story of how it all came together and has continued for over a dozen years is truly inspiring. The struggle for funding is perpetual. It’s not easy to retain staff when the wages are so low that working is essentially a labor of love. The girls who attend the school often lack familial support in their efforts to get an education. And their efforts to get a high enough score on the national post-secondary school test to qualify for the government to pay for them to go to college keep ending in heartbreak.
And yet they all persevere: the teachers, fundraisers from various nations who are captivated by the school’s mission, and the students. This book has left me feeling deeply appreciative of the good education I received for free for 12 years and from a low-cost state college. (And wishing I could take back all the grumbling I did about “having” to go to school!) I’m grateful to have an abundance of cheap food. And to have the luxury of easy access to menstrual products, without having to go through a creepy male-dominated black market, or miss school or sports practice because of my period. (This issue is huge for girls and women in less-developed countries.)
I was also inspired by the unity between Muslims and Christians in Kibera, who all attend school together and work together to make this school a reality. Everyone seemed to treat each other’s religion with great respect and a lack of tension. They’re all on the same team, whether they play soccer or not.
I’m really glad this book caught my eye. It will stay with me for a long time.
This book was not exactly what the title or cover seem to promise. I thought the focus was going to be on empowering girls through athletic training and accomplishment. Instead, soccer makes a sort-of frame for the story, but is pretty peripheral.
That does not detract from the power of this book, at all.
The story begins with soccer, as Abdul Kassim starts a team for girls in Kibera, a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi. Because the slum is not recognized as an official extension of the city, it gets no services. People have to construct their own houses; almost no one can afford indoor plumbing. The poverty is dire; they’re mostly surviving on $1US a day or less. Many of them are living on one meal a day, and not a terribly nutritious one, either.
Girls, in particular, feel the brunt of the grinding poverty. According to this book, Kenya had free public education until the 1980’s, when the country took a Structural Adjustment loan from the World Bank, which imposed conditions such as requiring that all schools charge tuition. The number of children being educated dropped dramatically as a result. (How this is supposed to “improve” a country is beyond me.) So parents were willing to send boys to school if they could scrape up the tuition money, but they weren’t so interested in paying to educate daughters. Girls in Kibera are often married off as soon as they start menstruating. If they aren’t married, they find themselves at the mercy of boys who have jobs and can afford to buy menstrual pads, which they then offer to girls in exchange for sex (with the predictable result that a large number of girls end up pregnant or infected with HIV). The combination of a lack of education plus this underground pad economy which allows young men control over young women puts girls in a terribly disadvantaged position, even beyond the poverty issues.
Abdul realized that the girls on his soccer team needed a free school if they were to reach their full potential. They also needed food. And free menstrual products. He set out to provide all of those things, and the story of how it all came together and has continued for over a dozen years is truly inspiring. The struggle for funding is perpetual. It’s not easy to retain staff when the wages are so low that working is essentially a labor of love. The girls who attend the school often lack familial support in their efforts to get an education. And their efforts to get a high enough score on the national post-secondary school test to qualify for the government to pay for them to go to college keep ending in heartbreak.
And yet they all persevere: the teachers, fundraisers from various nations who are captivated by the school’s mission, and the students. This book has left me feeling deeply appreciative of the good education I received for free for 12 years and from a low-cost state college. (And wishing I could take back all the grumbling I did about “having” to go to school!) I’m grateful to have an abundance of cheap food. And to have the luxury of easy access to menstrual products, without having to go through a creepy male-dominated black market, or miss school or sports practice because of my period. (This issue is huge for girls and women in less-developed countries.)
I was also inspired by the unity between Muslims and Christians in Kibera, who all attend school together and work together to make this school a reality. Everyone seemed to treat each other’s religion with great respect and a lack of tension. They’re all on the same team, whether they play soccer or not.
I’m really glad this book caught my eye. It will stay with me for a long time.
November 13, 2017
A must-read when it comes to educating girls - Roscher tells the story of KGSA with humility and grace, and you'll find yourself rooting for these girls more with the turn of every page.
February 17, 2019
This is a story of hope to every youth in every slum in the world.It is a story about the hope the love the happiness that exist in slums despite all the hardships that we encounter in the slum.It's a story about trust that better days are coming, a story about pushing yourself to be better despite where you came from.It is a story of selflessness.If the world had more Abduls and his partners...it would be a better place.
It took me a while to finish the book as it became too emotional...knowing almost every character in the book and reading about their life struggles.As a neighbour of Girls Soccer we assumed the school was founded by a foreigner but reading about Abdul's vision and struggles to keep the school running i appreciate how far the school has come.
Abdul is the new image of 'No Matter Where You Come From, Your Dreams Are Valid!'
It took me a while to finish the book as it became too emotional...knowing almost every character in the book and reading about their life struggles.As a neighbour of Girls Soccer we assumed the school was founded by a foreigner but reading about Abdul's vision and struggles to keep the school running i appreciate how far the school has come.
Abdul is the new image of 'No Matter Where You Come From, Your Dreams Are Valid!'
August 19, 2017
This book brought depth and insight to an area of Kenya that I had never considered. Basically, two guys started a free school. Seen through the lens of this free school, we consider how the community influences the impact of a school and vice versa - the school can only help the students within the school, but it also realised the necessity of helping students with issues like pads, pregnancies (sex becomes a transaction through which girls get money for food and pads) and parents (convincing parents to keep their kids in school).
I liked the focus on sports as an energy outlet. I like how religion just is, rather than an issue of contention. I liked the emphasis on gradual change, rather than immediate, and the implicit criticism of immediate change. It's not just a positive book - it deals with how the girls fail (e.g. they don't all get into college). It also covers aspects of funding and fund-raising. What's unstated is the stress that this has cost the organisers - only the success. Lastly, screw Comic Relief for raising money and not giving it without celebrities to intervene.
Notable quotes:
"There are so many donations, but the poverty level is not decreasing, because people don't want to dialogue. They just want to throw money at each other. We need to do better."
Freidah said, "We're doing well considering what our girls are up against. Our top girl, Mary, was living with her uncle in a violent neighborhood. He worked nights as a watchman, leaving her vulnerable and alone. She developed ulcers from the stress, so we had her move in with a teacher. But we cannot take all the girls in to live with us, so we must keep working to make their home lives stable enough for them to be able to study."
"Are dump sites a destination? Are people dying of AIDS and going hungry things to gawk at? Kibera is not a tourist attraction. Every day when I walk to school I see mzungus, white people, around here taking photos. They go to the railway to get the aerial view. They take those photos and exploit us. They make money off the photos. They want to tell the story of how poor we are, how sick we are, how dirty we are."
"Before I joined Girls Soccer," Teka said, "I had never come into contact with any mzungu, any white man. I used to think that white people were very special people, maybe closer to God. If I saw an African talking to a white man, I used to think the African was very special because he was talking to a white man. I thought it was impossible for me to be friends with white people."
I liked the focus on sports as an energy outlet. I like how religion just is, rather than an issue of contention. I liked the emphasis on gradual change, rather than immediate, and the implicit criticism of immediate change. It's not just a positive book - it deals with how the girls fail (e.g. they don't all get into college). It also covers aspects of funding and fund-raising. What's unstated is the stress that this has cost the organisers - only the success. Lastly, screw Comic Relief for raising money and not giving it without celebrities to intervene.
Notable quotes:
"There are so many donations, but the poverty level is not decreasing, because people don't want to dialogue. They just want to throw money at each other. We need to do better."
Freidah said, "We're doing well considering what our girls are up against. Our top girl, Mary, was living with her uncle in a violent neighborhood. He worked nights as a watchman, leaving her vulnerable and alone. She developed ulcers from the stress, so we had her move in with a teacher. But we cannot take all the girls in to live with us, so we must keep working to make their home lives stable enough for them to be able to study."
"Are dump sites a destination? Are people dying of AIDS and going hungry things to gawk at? Kibera is not a tourist attraction. Every day when I walk to school I see mzungus, white people, around here taking photos. They go to the railway to get the aerial view. They take those photos and exploit us. They make money off the photos. They want to tell the story of how poor we are, how sick we are, how dirty we are."
"Before I joined Girls Soccer," Teka said, "I had never come into contact with any mzungu, any white man. I used to think that white people were very special people, maybe closer to God. If I saw an African talking to a white man, I used to think the African was very special because he was talking to a white man. I thought it was impossible for me to be friends with white people."
September 3, 2017
My favorite chapter in this book is entitled, “Thriving Girls Change the World.” There is a quote on the first page that summarized much of the book quite eloquently: “The conversations that took place at KGSA often centered on the importance of free education, of delaying pregnancy and early marriage, or eliminating child prostitution and eradicating poverty. But the school also carved out time and space for these girls to run and kick, to be in their bodies as powerful athletes, to be free” (129). Play Like a Girl is a compilation of stories, both heart-breaking and triumphant, about a school that was born out of a soccer game.
In the slum of Kibera near Nairobi, Kenya, there is a school called Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA). Founded in 2006, this school has evolved into a place that 130 girls have formed a family, and work diligently to educate themselves to more independence and freedom.
I really enjoyed this book. It shed light on issues that I was unaware of, such as how simple things like needing menstrual pads can lead girls to having sex with men, often leading to pregnancy or diseases. KGSA works to empower girls, to support them both inside and outside of the classroom.
The book recounts the immense number of challenges these girls are up against, but what I take away above all, is how the human spirit can prevail. The way the school has grown and evolved in the last 11 years is not magic. It is the product of diligence and resolve on the part of the founder, Abdul Kassim, and countless other people who used their privilege, their time and their talents to grow something outside of themselves.
I recommend this book to anyone seeking more understanding of the world outside of their own nation’s borders, anyone looking beyond a feel good story to a story of grit and goodness, anyone who wants to think and talk more about the power of girls and the heart of women.
In the slum of Kibera near Nairobi, Kenya, there is a school called Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA). Founded in 2006, this school has evolved into a place that 130 girls have formed a family, and work diligently to educate themselves to more independence and freedom.
I really enjoyed this book. It shed light on issues that I was unaware of, such as how simple things like needing menstrual pads can lead girls to having sex with men, often leading to pregnancy or diseases. KGSA works to empower girls, to support them both inside and outside of the classroom.
The book recounts the immense number of challenges these girls are up against, but what I take away above all, is how the human spirit can prevail. The way the school has grown and evolved in the last 11 years is not magic. It is the product of diligence and resolve on the part of the founder, Abdul Kassim, and countless other people who used their privilege, their time and their talents to grow something outside of themselves.
I recommend this book to anyone seeking more understanding of the world outside of their own nation’s borders, anyone looking beyond a feel good story to a story of grit and goodness, anyone who wants to think and talk more about the power of girls and the heart of women.
October 18, 2017
Such an incredible story! It was a real pleasure to read through this book and get the insider's look of what building change looks like. Too often stories of aid are written by outsiders and people receiving the help are not given the credit they deserve.
It was pretty heart breaking to hear about all of the organizations that tried to just airdrop help on them, or the crooked partners who took the money and ran. But most of the cast here are courageous and creative people who are learning to thrive in an unlikely place.
It was pretty heart breaking to hear about all of the organizations that tried to just airdrop help on them, or the crooked partners who took the money and ran. But most of the cast here are courageous and creative people who are learning to thrive in an unlikely place.
March 31, 2018
It's an insightful and inspiring look at making change in difficult situations. The ways this school is able to confront challenges and help these girls make a way in the slum is pretty incredible. The book is pretty densely packed.
February 23, 2023
This book follows the journey of a few good men who start a free school for girls in Kibera, Kenya. Soccer is more of a side story, the main story is about the girls and teachers and all the volunteers that are making a change in the slums of Kibera. A sad and inspiring read.
January 4, 2022
I really liked this inspiring book about a school in Kibera, Kenya's largest slum.
First, the title is misleading because this is not a book about soccer, nor is it a book about a "soccer school" (which implies it's some sort of sports academy) - it's a book about a school that was started by a man who first started a soccer team and then parlayed it into a school.
Anyway, even though it wasn't what I expected I still really enjoyed the story. Abdul and his cohort are amazing people who have dome some amazing things in their community, and through a ton of hardship, and with the help of western benefactors.
Another great one in a line of inspiring stories about people in the world doing great things. If you like that sort of thing then add this to your list!
First, the title is misleading because this is not a book about soccer, nor is it a book about a "soccer school" (which implies it's some sort of sports academy) - it's a book about a school that was started by a man who first started a soccer team and then parlayed it into a school.
Anyway, even though it wasn't what I expected I still really enjoyed the story. Abdul and his cohort are amazing people who have dome some amazing things in their community, and through a ton of hardship, and with the help of western benefactors.
Another great one in a line of inspiring stories about people in the world doing great things. If you like that sort of thing then add this to your list!
May 30, 2018
Play like a girl – är en bok med äkthetskänsla. Den utspelalar sig i slumområdet Kibera i Nairobi, Kenya. Den beskriver ett fantastiskt uthålligt engagemang för den utsatta gruppen flickor. Genom att visa andra, och inte minst flickorna själva, att de kan spela fotboll sätts en enorm utveckling i rörelse. Detta är en sann historia beskriven i en läsvärd bok.
May 29, 2019
This is the story of how one man's vision and determination brought to life a school for girls in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Soccer was the starting point, but education and better opportunities for girls was the goal. An amazing accomplishment!
August 18, 2020
Hard lives these girls have. Amazing man who is trying to make a difference one girl at a time. What a blessing to have him donate so much of his time and own money to lift them out of impossible situations.
July 10, 2023
Having lived in Kenya, I loved reading this book. I only wish I had discovered KGSA while living in Nairobi. The audiobook felt a little hard to follow at times, because there were many individuals mentioned. I wish there was a better way to differentiate the girls’ stories
April 6, 2025
You really feel like you get to know the of Kibera. Their struggles, their dreams, their character and their homes. In tandem with their tales, the author does a great job painting a picture of all those involved in the NGO process of trying to make sustainable change. Very inspiring!
June 17, 2018
A very inspiring story.
December 9, 2018
Compelling story that unfortunately wasn’t written or edited well. I’d love to see someone else tell this story in a way that is accessible to kids, too.
May 14, 2020
Shows how a school grew out of the girls' own needs and guidance. Remarkable!
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October 19, 2025I didn’t love the narration style, but the story was powerful. The line “We were so poor that we were news” captures how Western media often turns the struggles of Black women in sub-Saharan Africa into spectacle, overlooking their strength and perseverance. It also exposes how racism and colorism distort perceptions, tying lighter skin to worth and intelligence and “cleanliness”, issues rooted in systemic inequality worldwide. Coach Mousa and Abdul embody real leadership. Despite not being paid, Abdul devoted himself to empowering the girls, while both men’s stoic guidance built confidence, humility, and discipline, I think these values transformed the team and their community immensely.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 11, 2022
An compelling story of economic development as it really happens: "slowly by slowly". What started as an informal soccer team in the slum evolved into a free school that educates over 130 girls annually. It's an inspiring story that is still happening today - you can even be a part of if you follow the KGSA Foundation on social media.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews