WOMEN OF WONDER
Making it big has enabled UWC’s top female athletes help tackle issues close to home — and their hearts By Aphiwe Kani
I
t takes a great deal of time, discipline and commitment to become a professional athlete. For female athletes, additional grit is needed to succeed in maledominated sports such as rugby and football. These are things that international football player Thembi Kgatlana (25) and Babalwa Latsha (27), the first and only African women’s rugby player to go professional, know. The University of the Western Cape (UWC) alumni are now using their resources and positions as international, high-performance athletes to tackle serious off-field problems in society, particularly in the communities they hail from. One of the biggest problems they are focusing on is the lack of access girls from low-income communities and disadvantaged backgrounds have to sanitary pads. Kgatlana is the founder of the Thembi Kgatlana Foundation, which she launched in 2016 in Mohlakeng, Gauteng. The Buy A Girl A Pad campaign allows the foundation to provide sanitary pads to girls from disadvantaged communities who cannot afford to buy any for themselves. The foundation also focuses on providing school uniforms to learners and stationery for schools in the townships. “The premise of the foundation is to empower young girls who are interested in sports, particularly football. We want to change the
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mindset within our communities that football is not only for boys but that girls can play, too. “We also introduce them to coaches from national teams to mentor some of the girls, which gives them hope that they also can accomplish their goals and dreams.” Latsha, who graduated from UWC with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree in 2019, is using her legal knowledge and skills in the non-profit sector now. “I always wanted to be a lawyer and did
not really see sports as a career but more as a hobby. I wanted to be this champion of justice, a human rights activist, and fight for gender equality.” In her current role, she is doing exactly that. “While I may not be litigating in court or pleading a case, my journey has taken me into the non-profit sector. I am currently a director of the Menstruation Foundation, an organisation whose sole purpose is to fight period poverty.”
