Box Girls Kenya, a community-based boxing organization, has called for the establishment of a women’s boxing league in Kenya to help in talent development and advancement of the sport.
This emerged during the unveiling of Box Girls Kenya as the Tujiamini Gold award winners for Nairobi region who walk away with Kes. 500,000. Tujiamini, powered by SportPesa aims to nurture and support sports and sports related talent to help improve the quality of sport in the grassroots and community level.
“We need a well-structured and exclusive Women’s Boxing League run entirely by the women to support enrolment and competitiveness in the sport through regular tournaments. This will help build up our amateur and professional rankings to give our female boxers an edge regionally and globally,” said Analo Anjere, boxing coach and founder of Box Girls Kenya.
Anjere explained the Tujiamini award, will go into upgrading their gym and training facilities located in Kariobangi area of Embakasi North Constituency in Nairobi. According to Sarah Achieng, a professional boxer and the sports administrator at Box Girls Kenya, in spite of a growing interest and talent in Kenya, women boxing remains critically under developed in comparison to its male counterpart.
“Regular scheduled fights are crucial for the growth and development of boxing. Female boxers in particular, need consistent competition to maximise their full potential. I urge the public to strongly support women sports because we have the talent and requisite competitive spirit to succeed,” said Achieng.
Box Girls Kenya which focuses on the growth of female boxers in the grassroots, began in 2007 with just two women aspiring to box and excel in the sport. It has to date trained and mentored over 4,000 girls in boxing and self defence classes and hopes to ultimately expand to include other sports and non- sports activities to keep empowering girls beyond the boxing ring.
Lyle Asiligwa Director at DBA Africa that have partnered with SportPesa in the Tujiamini Initiative acknowledged the immense talent in young women looking for advancement opportunities in the community. “The Nairobi region’s Tujiamini submissions displayed a high level of competitiveness and Box Girls Kenya stood out as a key driver of sporting talent and positive change in the community. Their blend of amateur and professional boxing is proving to be high-yielding and we look forward to seeing more exploits from the club,” he said.
The Tujiamini Initiative powered by SportPesa heads to South Rift region in September. Young people have been urged to enrol in large numbers as the initiative nears completion in November.