Asha Jaffar's Journey from Soccer Academy in Kibera Inspires CDH Students
Mr. Timothy Teuber, Religion Teacher
October 9, 2024
We had the privilege of welcoming Asha Jaffar, a graduate of the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy, to CDH on October 2 to speak with our students. Asha was featured in Play Like a Girl, a book by Ellie Roscher ’98 that tells the story of a soccer school in Kenya’s slums that 'started a revolution.' Since then, Asha has achieved remarkable milestones, including earning a bachelor’s degree, building a career in journalism, and being named Kenya’s most influential activist in 2021.
Cretin-Derham Hall has several strong connections to the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. Started originally as a soccer team to empower girls in Kibera to overcome extreme gender inequities, founder Abdul Kassim realized the girls needed much more than an opportunity to play soccer. In 2006 he opened the free school and KGSA has grown from a one room schoolhouse of 13 students to a 3 story boarding school for 150 girls.
Ryan Sarfolean ’03 visited the school while in college and would go on to create the KGSA Foundation which financially supports the school. Roscher visited Kibera in 2012 and 2013 to gather stories of the school and its students. She wrote about those stories in her 2017 book, Play Like a Girl: How a Soccer School in Kenya’s Slums Started a Revolution and followed that up with a children’s book, Remarkable Rose in 2023. Ellen Weber ‘12 also visited KGSA and works with the Foundation in the Twin Cities area.
Together, these alums played a role in bringing Asha Jaffar to CDH to speak to students in their religion and Spectrum classes. Asha is a 2011 graduate of KGSA who has gone on to earn her bachelor’s degree and pursue a career in journalism. She has contributed to foreign and local media and in 2014 won the Special Award of the Haller Prize for Development Journalism. Between 2013 and 2015, she worked in communications for the non-profit Action Aid and has worked as an assistant producer, translator and editor for major film companies in Kenya and abroad. In 2020 she was voted Activist of the Year for her humanitarian work and in 2021 named the most influential Activist in Kenya. She currently serves on the KGSA board of directors that oversees the school’s operations. Asha has been featured in NYT and National Geographic for her Kibra Food Drive supporting needy families during the pandemic. She was also featured in Roscher’s book “Play Like a Girl.”
While at CDH, Asha shared a short video about KGSA and spoke to students about the school’s mission while answering their questions about the school, her story, her work, and the struggles of living in extreme poverty in Kibera.