Sarah Forde

Playing by Their Rules: Coastal Teenage Girls in Kenya on Life, Love and Football Sarah Forde

In April 2001 a small girls' football and development programme began in Kilifi district, coastal Kenya. Eight years later there are 3,000 girls playing football, accessing reproductive health information and social support in the Moving the Goalposts (MTG) project. Playing by Their Rules tells the girls' stories as told to the author, Sarah Forde, a journalist, development practitioner and trained football coach who had been with MTG from the outset. The stories expose how girls negotiate through their complex teenage years. We hear tales of their sexual dilemmas, the onset of menses, their fear of pregnancy, the prevalence of abortion, their school and home lives and how football both enriches and complicates their lives. Most of all, though, the book is an account of the author's journey into the girls' worlds - a unique telling of stories that are shocking, heart-warming and enlightening for those of us who'd like to know more about the teenage lives of girls in East Africa.