Fewer teams to join
Boys' sides exist in most wards around Tala. Girls looking for a structured team have to travel, or stop playing.
Our Work · Football
Girls' football, built on a pathway that already works.
Chipukizi FC has been developing young players in Tala since 2017. The girls' programme extends that same pathway to players who have had far fewer places to play.
Why it exists
Girls in Machakos have ability and almost nowhere to use it.
The journey is the barrier
Families weigh a girl walking to training against the risk of the route home. Session times and locations decide whether she attends.
Domestic work comes first
Girls carry more household responsibility than their brothers. A fixture list that ignores that will lose them by the third week.
Nobody scouts them
Scouts, academies and county selectors turn up where boys play. Talent that is never watched is talent that never progresses.
What is already happening
Girls' sides have competed at the Tala Opens.
The Tala Opens is the tournament CYEF runs with Green Generation Initiative and local partners. Girls' teams have taken part in football and basketball fixtures there, in full kit, with coaches and chaperones present.
That is the foundation the programme builds on. It is tournament participation rather than a season-long league, and this page will say so until that changes.
- Where: Tala and the surrounding wards of Machakos County.
- Through: the existing Chipukizi FC coaching structure and school partnerships.
- With: Green Generation Initiative, Football Kenya Federation affiliation at tournament level and local schools.
How it runs
The training and fixture model.
Weekly training
Sessions in daylight hours, at times agreed with families around school and household work, at a venue girls can reach on foot.
Female coaching presence
A female coach or chaperone is present at every session. This is a condition of the programme running, not an aspiration.
Kit and equipment provided
Boots, balls and playing kit are supplied, so cost is not the reason a girl stops attending. There is no participation fee.
Fixtures and tournaments
Friendlies against neighbouring schools and sides, building towards regular competitive fixtures and the annual Tala Opens.
Facilities that work
Private changing space, working toilets and discreet sanitary provision. Menstruation is one of the most common reasons girls leave sport.
More than players
Girls are supported into coaching, officiating and team leadership, so the programme develops people who can run it.
Safeguarding
How girls are kept safe on this programme.
Girls' sport carries risks that a general safeguarding statement does not cover. These are the specific controls that apply to every session and fixture.
- Female chaperone present at every training session, match and journey, without exception.
- Every adult vetted with a Police Clearance Certificate that is renewed annually, plus a signed Code of Conduct.
- No adult alone with a player. Coaching happens in open view, and no adult travels alone with a single child.
- Supervised facilities. Changing areas are supervised at the entrance and never inside. Photography there is prohibited.
- A reporting route girls know. Players are told who to speak to, and can call Childline Kenya on 116 free at any hour.
- Consented photography only. No full names beside images, no school names and no locations in captions.
Where it goes
What CYEF is working towards.
A season, not a tournament
Moving from fixtures at the Tala Opens to a regular fixture list across the school year.
Age-group sides
Separate squads by age, so a fourteen-year-old is not competing physically against a young adult.
Women coaching
Recruiting and certifying female coaches from within the programme, which is the only way it becomes sustainable.
A route onward
Connections to county selection, academies and scholarship pathways, the same as the boys' side already has.
Participation figures are published only once they are verified from programme registers. CYEF does not estimate them.
Support the programme
Kit, transport and coaching are what unlock this.
The barriers to girls playing football here are practical ones. Boots, a ball, a safe way to get to training and a coach who turns up every week. Partners and funders who can help with any of those are welcome to get in touch.