Basket Hounds - Supporting young women through sports in Mbare
By Stine Kronsted - Dreamtown’s Urban Designer
BASKET HOUNDS is a female basketball team based in Mbare, the largest slum community in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was founded by coach Freddy Kachakwara in 2014, along with two young women, Duduzile and Ashley - all of them Mbare locals. At the time of the foundation of the team, the only sport for girls in the community was netball. Girls were not represented in more widespread sports as soccer and basketball. The coach and his companions wanted to change that, so they founded Basket Hounds.
In 2015, Basket Hounds had seven girls in the team. As a way of recruiting new members into the team, coach Kachakwara began coaching basketball in different high schools in Mbare. By coaching in different schools, Kachakwara managed to spot talented, young, female basketball players who could join Basket Hounds. Today, Basket Hounds has over 47 registered players and, besides that, 30 young women who come for fitness classes. According to Kachakwara, “unlike other sports and teams in Mbare, Basket Hounds continue to create strong networks between the young women in Mbare and the surrounding communities. We have managed to change the way people think towards girls who are doing sports”.
Over the years, Basket Hounds have participated in many tournaments and friendly matches with other teams... most of them were victorious. From the Christian Basketball Tournament to The Great Harare Tournament, The Preachers Tournament, The Faith Ministries Tournament, and The Great Pride Tournament. An important event for the team is when they host the annual International Day of the Girl Child basketball tournament. Here, the girls compete with other teams in celebration of the day, while bringing attention to issues concerning young women.
Kachakwara says, “we have created strong relations with the City of Harare through our games and tournaments and they are now in full support of all of the Basket Hounds programs. Basket Hounds is also helping put Mbare on the map because of its consistency in winning matches and tournaments and also supplying players to the teams which compete in the professional league of Zimbabwe”.
While Basket Hounds is first and foremost a sports team with talented female basketball players, it now also works as a platform supporting young girls in a male-dominated community. With the team, the young women have a place to meet and feel empowered, as they develop their talent among like-minded young women.
Kachakwara talks about the vision of the team by saying; “our vision as Basket Hounds moves beyond the sport activity; we want to impact communities and change the wellbeing of girls. Basket Hounds is now a platform that offers trainings in basic life skills, entrepreneurship and advocacy for our members and the community. The vision is to become an organisation that empowers young women, and youth in general, to become change makers and to become the best athletes nationwide.”
Basket Hounds is an example of all of the cool small-scale, local initiatives that grow into important platforms for the community. The team plays an important role in Mbare and has facilitated the refurbishment of a local court, which is now used by several sports teams.
Our local partner organisation, House of Arts, supports the Basket Hounds with team-building workshops and helps the team with hosting events. Dreamtown works with the Mbare community through several projects and supports local youth-led initiatives that give young people a voice, and a space to participate. Our goal is to support as many cool youth-led projects and platforms as possible - and we are super inspired by Basket Hounds and their team.
NO LIMITS - FOCUS - STEP UP, says the battle cry from Basket Hounds.
