why sport?
We believe that sport is a powerful force that can and should be harnessed for social good. In November 2003, the United Nations Resolution 58/5 was adopted, calling on governments to use sport as a means to promote education, health, development and peace. Many governments and development agencies are recognizing the potential of sport to act as a tool for achieving global development goals in all many areas:

• Human development:
  Improving public health and well-being, supporting education, and providing leisure activities


• Social development:
  Promoting stability, tolerance, gender equality, social inclusion and community building


• Political development:
  Promoting peace and respect for the rules of democracy


• Economic development:
  Fostering financial investment and generating employment opportunities

why girls?
It has been shown that poverty affects women disproportionately to men. This gap between women and men caught in the cycle of poverty has been termed by the United Nations as the "feminization of poverty" (see the UNFPA homepage).

In many developing countries, cultural and economic factors prevent women from gaining access to education or entering the workforce. Without these opportunities, a status quo of inequality persists, reinforcing the poverty cycle, and confining women to a life without the kinds of freedoms taken for granted elsewhere. This cycle does not only negatively impact the lives of individual women, but seriously damages the development aspirations of societies as a whole and it is increasingly recognized that investing in women is the most cost effective approach to sustainable development.

Sport is a medium proven to help young women gain access to aspects of life that they have previously been denied, and to help lead them to a future with greater opportunities. This advancement is achieved not only through the unique joy and freedom sport provides, but also by the use of sport as a mechanism for tackling wider issues of socio-economic and gender inequality.