cynthia mc kinney drayton the manifesto txt

EVERYONE A�CHA�NGEMA�KER

the manifesto project objectives

Provide a focusing agenda for sport organizations serving girls and women

Provide specific steps to galvanize action

Provide a blueprint to Women Win that outlines possible paths forward

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part 1: the reason

No one knows better than we do the value of teamwork. So it’s time for our organizations to come together, to work in concert for a set of common goals.

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part 1: the reason

We do this on behalf of all the women and girls worldwide whom we serve—who have trusted us to become an integral part of their journey toward a better life.

part 1: the reason

While our organizations work on different aspects of a cluster of issues, we can all agree on the following:

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part 1: the reason

While our organizations work on different aspects of a cluster of issues, we can all agree on the following:

Sport saves lives. Sport builds community. Sport reinvents culture. For women and girls of every age and class around the globe, sport and fitness are paths to health, equality and a sense of their own power.

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part 2: what we believe

Remove the barriers that prevent women & girls from participating in sports and society

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ideals in practice

Cambodian National Volleyball League

When Australian Christopher Minko came to Cambodia in 1996,

he saw an opportunity for sport to transform lives. Around five

percent of the country’s population is disabled, from disease

and the civil conflict that left landmines strewn throughout the

countryside. In 1999, Minko founded the Cambodian National

Volleyball League (Disabled), which transformed amputees

into international competitors. CNVLD branched out in 2004,

launching a wheelchair racing program that gives the disabled a

way to succeed at the professional level. Women now make up

a third of the program’s participants. Female racer Bun Sokun

told wheelchair sponsor WomenSport International, “My relatives

from Kompong Cham province visited Phnom Penh and asked

me, ‘What has happened to you? Before you always looked sick

but now you look much stronger and much happier.’ I told them,

now I am an athlete.” The athletes are now so highly regarded

that when several female wheelie racers had trouble getting inside

program-sponsor ANZ Royal Bank to open accounts, the bank

introduced a national policy to make its branches accessible.

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Sport and teamwork is not a luxury; it is a necessity.

The role models girls see and meet shape their vision of what’s possible.

Girls and women need equipment and facilities designed for them.

Safety is not peripheral.

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Safety is not peripheral.

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part 3: our shared focus

Every organization in our ranks has its own unique contribution to the field and to the women or girls that it serves. But all of us should find ways to incorporate these goals into our work

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We should link our work to girls’ future success

The effect that sport can have on self-esteem, confidence and day-to-day happiness is enormous. But we must also be explicit (with girls, ourselves and our funders) about how the skills we are teaching relate to future life skills, career paths and economic prosperity. We must provide a path, as well as a drive to begin.

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ideals in practice

Founder Heather Cameron was first introduced to amateur boxing

in Toronto, where she found the speed and strategy far from the

bloodletting in the professional arena. While teaching about sport

at the Free University in Berlin, she decided to start Boxgirls, an

all-female club that trains together, fostering communication skills

and leadership. Since then, the organization has branched out

to Nairobi and has plans for a club in Hanoi. Boxgirls thrives on

partnerships with nonprofits to give approximately 200 girls and

women who train in the ring opportunities to train for careers.

A German foundation that surveyed participants found that the

majority reported becoming more tolerant, courageous, athletic,

and fitter. Cameron told CNN in 2008, “They’re able to take on

things which, before, they thought was perhaps too big a challenge

because they’re able to make those challenges work at the boxing

gym.” Boxing also instills self-assuredness, heading off gender-

based violence. Nairobi participant Elizabeth says, “Now I can be

proud of who I am. I can walk proudly and with confidence.”

Box Girls


We need to measure, correlate and evaluate our work rigorously.

Proving the worth of our individual endeavors elevates the whole field. More energy needs to be spent on sharing ways to document and measure our effect.

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ideals in practice

Two medical doctors and professors at Oregon Health and

Science University’s Center for Health Promotion Research

developed a scripted curriculum program in 1994 called ATLAS

(Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids) to prevent male

high school athletes from steroid and other drug use. Its success

prompted doctors Diane Elliot and Linn Goldberg to design a

program the following year just for female athletes that addresses

the roots of unhealthy behavior, including eating disorders and

diet pill use. ATHENA, which stands for Athletes Targeting Healthy

Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives, is a peer-led curriculum for girls

sports teams incorporated into light training days. The program has

eight sessions, each 45 minutes long, where students participate

in interactive games, role-plays, and school-wide campaigns.

Approximately 10,000 U.S. high school girls are now on ATHENA

teams. Studies of the program in peer-reviewed journals show that

even three years after graduation, fewer ATHENA use cigarettes,

marijuana, or alcohol than their non-participating peers.

ATHENA

part 4: what we’ll do

Moving forward as a field means strengthening our individual organizations. It also means recognizing some collective challenges and needs. To that end, we agree to invest time and resources jointly in these areas:

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We’ll emphasize the search for business models that allow our organizations (individually or as a cooperative) to be self-sustained.

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ideals in practice

This community-based organization started in 2001 as a way for girls

in an extremely poor area of Kenya to beat the odds stacked against

them. The vast majority of girls in Kilifi district, Coast Province, don’t

attend secondary school. Moving the Goalposts uses soccer as a

way to instill self-confidence and prepare the girls to not only stay

healthy but succeed. The organization began with fewer than 100

girls and has since grown to include more than 3,000 participants

ages 9 to 25. Cofounder Sarah Forde has said that monitoring

and evaluating the organization’s effectiveness doesn’t have to be

expensive, but it does require commitment. Since there are only

a handful of paid staff, the program has experimented with tools,

including problem trees, group discussions, and in-depth interviews.

By constantly looking for ways to improve, the organization

discovered that expensive sanitary pads were making it difficult

for girls to play, contributing to school absences and encouraging

risky behavior. Working with a professor from Makerere University

in Uganda, MTGK developed a business plan to produce affordable

pads locally from papyrus grass.

Moving the Goalposts Kilifi

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ideals in practice

Formed in 2002 by a group of businesswomen, Bpeace is a

nonprofit network of professional volunteers who promote peace

by helping women in war-torn areas start their own sustainable

businesses. The network operates in Afghanistan, where

many women are illiterate, in need of income, and widowed.

“The problem in Afghanistan is that the women have excellent

embroidery and tailoring skills but have been isolated for so long,”

cofounder Toni Maloney told Business Week in 2005. The following

year, Bpeace held a competition to identify Afghan women

entrepreneurs. Three separate entries unexpectedly came from

soccer ball producers. Afghanis fleeing the Taliban had learned

how to stitch them in refugee camps and brought the skill back

when they returned. Bpeace invited the women to unite and, with

assistance from an ad agency, they created a new brand called

Dosti. A nonprofit provided funding so that Dosti can start selling

12,000 balls made by Afghan women in 2009, benefiting families,

coaches, and the players themselves.

Business Council for Peace



We’ll advocate for more academic research to study the global effect of sport on the lives of women and girls.

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We’ll advocate for more academic research to study the global effect of sport on the lives of women and girls.

We’ll call for more leadership and management training for the women who lead this field and the world of sport.

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ideals in practice

In the U.S., only 10 to 15 percent of youth sports coaches are

women. Team-Up for Girls, an initiative of the Oakland, California-

based after-school sports organization Team Up for Youth, aims

to change that. The initiative targets low-income communities

in California where schools lack funding for after-school sports

programs. Team-Up recruits and trains college students and

community members to be coaches and then places them through

partnerships with youth sports programs. Girls gain access

to coaches experienced in a range of sports, from traditional

softball to the soccer variation, futbal. “Coaches can be a young

person’s best teacher, guiding her through the powerful experience

of playing and working, succeeding and failing, risking and

persevering,” Zulma Muñoz, chair of Team-Up for Youth’s Youth

Advisory Committee, wrote in an op-ed for the San Francisco

Chronicle. Her own soccer coach was instrumental in helping her

become the first family member to attend college. Team-Up for

Girls intends to keep the ball rolling by recruiting 750 new female

coaches within two years.

Team-Up for Girls

cynthia mc kinney drayton the manifesto txt

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