Meet the Gen Z using basketball to fight defilement, teen pregnancies, school dropout rate
A basketball coach.
What you need to know:
- What started out as an opportunity to sharpen her basketball skills for Natasha, who was raised in the Kileleshwa suburb, turned out to be a meeting with her destiny.
- In the future, Natasha wants to build a sports complex with accommodation facilities, a basketball court, swimming pool, and football field so that anyone in distress can find a home there.
Natasha Atieno is not your average Gen Z, a generation stereotyped as entitled, lazy and screen-obsessed. The 25-year-old basketball champion and coach is using her talent and leadership skills to help change the lives of girls and boys in Kayole.
She joined the Kayole-based Far East Basketball Association (Feba) in 2018 after completing her high school studies. Her aunt, a retired professional basketball player, insisted that it was the best organisation to nurture her into a pro-athlete in basketball.
Founded in 2011 to prevent crime, Feba has since morphed into a multi-pronged organisation focusing on education, advocacy, leadership, psychosocial support, and sports business. According to data from their official website, Feba has impacted the lives of over 500,000 youth aged nine to 21 to date.
What started out as an opportunity to sharpen her basketball skills for Natasha, who was raised in the Kileleshwa suburb, turned out to be a meeting with her destiny. To cap it all, they won the basketball championship that year.
Through Feba, she earned a scholarship to study sports management at Riara University; she’s one of the 70 youth coaches at the association.
Additionally, she founded the Tasha Love Foundation, pooling resources to support the development of sports.
She’s candid about her reasons for staying on at Feba.
“Coaching was my way of giving back to the community, which had taught me how to play professional basketball. This came with international travel and job opportunities. My teammates are my brothers and sisters, and it felt wrong to leave. I thought that if I could give another little girl the same opportunity by just coaching them and giving guidance like my coaches had done for me, then I’d give back.”
Teenage pregnancies and defilement dominated conversations on the basketball court. It later emerged that female team members who frequently missed practice were pregnant, had been defiled, or both.
“One of the most heartbreaking moments was when one of my shyest players, a pre-teen, opened up to me one day about defilement by her mother’s client.
"Her mother, a sex worker, had come home drunk one day and simply handed the girl over to one of her clients, who raped her. She was too traumatised to go back home.”
Feba has incorporated therapists into their programs, and the coaches often refer the players in need of therapy to them. The girl got the psychosocial help she needed, and was enrolled into a boarding school.
“When they confide in me as their coach that they prefer the court to their homes, I know what they mean and what they need.”
In the future, Natasha wants to build a sports complex with accommodation facilities, a basketball court, swimming pool, and football field so that anyone in distress can find a home there.
The writer comments on social, reproductive health and gender topics (@FaithOneya; [email protected]).