When Olympian Esther Siamfuko first joined a local girls’ football programme run by Força Foundation – no one could have predicted just how far the young girl would go.
From that start at a community‑level sports programme empowering girls in Lusaka, Siamfuko has travelled a remarkable journey that has taken her all the way to the Olympics at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.
Siamfuko’s story is much more than just a tale of personal success for the Força Foundation. It’s a strong example of how giving girls access to opportunities and how consistent support can change their lives.
“Esther’s journey shows exactly what is possible when girls are given space to play, to lead, and to imagine themselves at the top,” Kadia Sow Mbaye, the CEO of Força Foundation tells Olympics.com. “She embodies the strength, leadership, and motivation that our programme aims to build.”
From Maputo to Lusaka, Dakar to Stockholm, Força Foundation is creating a generation of confident young women — ready to change the world.
An idea that began as a single girls’ team in the suburbs of the Mozambique capital has now grown into an international programme empowering young women across Africa – and beyond.
During the Dakar en Jeux 2025 held in the Senegalese capital, Olympics.com met the girls at the local chapter of Força Foundation which Mbaye founded, to empower them for life and give them support she wished she had.
“As someone from West African origins, I knew the societal barriers that we are facing here,” she tells Olympics.com.
“I knew these kinds of barriers from my experience in sport within my family and I wanted to offer them also the possibility to thrive, to empower the girls, to make them more powerful, and help them to become the leaders of tomorrow.”
For the last seven years she has facilitated the strengthening of girls’ access in Senegal, one of the 30 countries across continents where the foundation is working to build inclusive leadership in and through football.
- Dakar 2026 : Africa’s impact on the Olympics, key Olympians, and top Games moments from across the continent
- Dakar 2026: Khadjou Sambe, Senegal’s first professional female surfer and the “mermaid” of Ngor breaking barriers
Kadia Sow Mbaye on why “girls deserve the same rights and chances in sports”
Mbaye understands the pressures girls face very well – criticism, stigma, and the idea that sport “isn’t for them.”
Growing up in a suburb of greater Paris with her grandparents, playing sport as a young girl of African descent was not a given.
“From my personal experience, I played handball in Europe, but I grew up in a traditional family,” she remembered.
“When I came home from practice with short hair and wearing shorts, I often heard comments like, ‘You look like a boy!’ I was mentally strong enough to handle this, but many girls are not. They face discriminatory comments about their bodies, their appearance…simply for participating in sport.”
Decades later, she made it her mission to give girls the support she wished she had.
“In Senegal, I was surprised to see that girls’ football was relatively visible. Many women run on the Corniche or practice sports daily. But still, far fewer girls play compared to boys. They have fewer opportunities, less access to space, and fewer female coaches or role models,” she noted of the hundreds of people who regularly exercise on the corniche of the capital of Senegal and beyond.
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/empowering-girls-through-football-forca-foundation-story
