How Rugby Is Opening School Doors for Girls in Western Kenya

Standfirst: Fourteen sports scholarships, a stack of new opportunities, and a captain who just keeps rising. Our Western Girls Academy coach, Hassan Ali, looks back on the year.

We're nearly a full year in, and it's been a real joy to watch our academy players go from strength to strength. A lot of that comes down to something simple: getting talent seen.

Over the year, we've run events and training sessions at accessible local venues, where teachers, head teachers and coaches can come and watch the young players in their own areas. Those visits have turned into real opportunities. Again and again, a good day on the pitch has led to a scholarship offer, a place in a school team or a chance to play at a higher level.

Fourteen girls, fourteen futures

Nowhere has this been clearer than at our Western Girls Academy. So far, around 14 girls from the academy have earned sports scholarships to schools across the region.

Sigoti Complex Girls Senior School has been especially generous. It has offered free places to several girls from our academies and now educates more of our scholarship holders than any other school. We're also grateful to Sinagaa Girls, Friends School Kaimosi and Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls School for opening their doors to our players.

Each of these scholarships means a girl stays in school, keeps playing the sport she loves, and gets to aim higher than she might have thought possible.

Meet Maryline Amita

If one player sums up what this programme is about, it's Maryline Amita.

Maryline is 15 and grew up around Kabras RFC. She spent her childhood watching the club's players and seeing the club grow, and a love of rugby took hold early. She comes from a humble background, and rugby has given her a sense of purpose. Through it, she has won a full academic scholarship to Sigoti Girls Complex Senior School, and the DBA Africa Girls Academy in Kakamega has given her exposure to rugby at a higher level.

Watching her develop has been nothing short of breathtaking. She has led her team in local fixtures and represented her school in the Kenya Secondary Schools competition. In 2025 she captained the DBA Africa Dream Team on its tour to the Coast, where the side went unbeaten.

Maryline is just as committed in the classroom. She's an above-average student who hopes to become a health professional. Her coaches talk about her reading of the game, her sportsmanship, her people skills and her quiet leadership. Anyone who watches her play notices them.

She loves the academy and is always proud to represent DBA Africa at age-grade level. Her dreams are big. She wants to play professional rugby, represent Kenya in tier-one international competition and build a career as a medical officer.

Her Key Highlights

• Current captain, DBA Africa Girls Western Academy
• DBA Africa Futures Cup 2024 and 2025
• Captain, DBA Africa Dream Team Tour 2025
• KSSSA Nyanza Region 7s MVP 2026
• KSSSA 7s Nationals 2026
• Maseno Open 7s runners-up 2026

Why we keep going

Stories like Maryline's are why we keep going. Behind every scholarship there's a family, a school and a coach who believed in a young person. We're grateful to the schools that have opened their doors, to the parents and guardians who support their daughters, and to Coach Hassan Ali, whose dedication to the Western Girls Academy made this possible.

Here's to the next 14, and many more after them.