The Thembi Kgatlana Foundation was founded by South African international Thembi Kgatlana to ensure no girl has to choose between her education, health and football.
“We see you, we recognise you, you don’t have to stop going to school, or stop playing football because you get your periods.”
For Thembi, this message defines the work of the Thembi Kgatlana Foundation, which was first founded in 2016. It is a message of promise to the future generation, guided by Thembi’s lived experiences.
Long before the global stage, individual honours, and international moves, the 29-year-old understood what it was like to grow up in a society where women’s football was unheard of. Where opportunities were limited, invisible even.
Today, her foundation is working to change that and capitalise on the growing movement of women’s sport.
Through movements like ‘Buy a Girl a Pad’, the foundation is tackling one of the most overlooked barriers in girls’ education and sporting careers. By providing access to sanitary products, it means no girl should have to choose between her education, her health, and her love for the game.
“Girls miss school because they get their periods, and that affects their performances in school. If they play sports, they miss going to school and going to play football.”
Thembi’s journey into football was like many others. She grew up in Mohlakeng, a township just west of Johannesburg, where football was not known to be a women’s sport.
At eight-years-old, she began playing for fun with nothing more than a ball and her group of friends.
She admits that most children play football rather than rugby or golf because it’s cheaper for parents to purchase football equipment. However, there was a quiet reality where football didn’t appear a viable career option.
“I was about 12 years old when I joined an official women’s team, and I didn’t know this existed,” she said. “It came as a very huge surprise for me, and I was very interested to see where playing football would actually take me.”
Then followed a journey full off triumphant highs both domestically and internationally. But more importantly, a career which allows her to continue her dedicated work with her foundation to improve opportunities for girls who stand where Thembi stood.
Thembi notes she always had ‘a dream’ but she patiently waited for the right moment, as ‘some dreams come later than expected’. For Thembi, the defining moment came when she returned from the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I realised there’s so much that could be done for women’s football. Not just getting the girls to play but rather we want to change their lives,” she said.
Thembi knew there was a big space for women’s football back home and set out to raise awareness through word of mouth. While men’s tournaments were the norm, she went out to speak to fans and pitched the idea of the foundation.
“I thought, why not go out, get some funds, pitch this idea to people to say ‘hey, women’s football is growing everywhere else in the rest of the world, So why don’t we just start the ship now to see where it will get us?'”
The forward recognised it would take a lot of ‘time and investment’, but was willing to take small steps towards her goal of changing the lives of so many back home.
Having come from an underprivileged community, what stood out was something deeply personal.
“Girls were missing school. And not only girls that are playing sports, they miss school because they get their periods, and that affected their performances in school,” she explained. “I imagined that if they play sports, that means they miss going to school and going to play football.”
It was these revelations which planted the seeds for the Thembi Kgatlana Foundation, where sport can help drive a change for the girls back in South Africa.