Using Rugby to Build Safer, Smarter and Stronger Youth

Sport is more than just games, if positioned correctly it’s a vehicle for education, life skills, and empowerment. For young people across Kenya, opportunities to explore mental health, personal safety, and healthy relationships are often limited, particularly in school and community settings. Tackle It is designed to change that.

Launched in partnership with LVCT Health through its youth-focused arm, One2One Kenya, and supported by the Barbarians Rugby Charitable Trust, Tackle It is a five-week rugby-based programme that combines on-field training with guided conversations off it. By embedding discussions around mental health, gender-based violence prevention, and youth empowerment into sport, the programme creates a safe, engaging environment where young people can learn, grow, and thrive.

Why Tackle It Matters

Across Kenya, schools face challenges in supporting youth with practical, age-appropriate guidance on wellbeing, consent and personal safety. Many students come from households with limited resources, and conversations about mental health or gender-based violence are rarely embedded into everyday school life. Sport provides a trusted entry point; a space where young people already have passion, community and energy,  to open these essential conversations.

The programme addresses three key areas:

• For students: Building confidence, self-awareness, and emotional literacy; recognising unsafe situations; understanding mental health as part of overall wellbeing. 
• For schools: Strengthening support systems with trained facilitators who encourage safeguarding awareness, promote positive behaviour, and help identify students needing extra guidance. 
• For communities: Promoting healthier peer relationships, reducing stigma, and creating safer spaces where young people can flourish both on and off the field. 

How the Programme Works

Tackle It is delivered in partnership with schools and community programmes through a five-week structured cycle. Each session blends rugby drills with facilitated discussions, reflection activities, and peer-to-peer learning.

Guided by One2One, all sensitive topics; including gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, and mental wellbeing, are handled responsibly, ensuring safety and inclusivity. DBA Africa coaches and facilitators receive specialist training to deliver the programme ethically and effectively.

“The combination of sport and guided conversation allows young people to explore difficult topics in a safe, supported environment,” says Pius D. Shiundu of DBA Africa. “Tackle It reflects our belief that sport should do more than create athletes. It can support mental wellbeing, promote healthy relationships, and keep young people engaged in school.”

Lessons from the Pilot

The Tackle It pilot was conducted in select schools and communities across Kenya. Early results highlighted the value of the approach:

• Students engaged more openly when discussions were embedded in rugby sessions 
• Coaches reported increased confidence in facilitating sensitive conversations 
• Schools welcomed the programme as a complement to existing support systems 

These findings reinforced DBA Africa’s belief that structured, sport-linked interventions can strengthen education, wellbeing and community cohesion simultaneously.

Scaling for Impact

With the support of the Barbarians Rugby Charitable Trust, Tackle It is poised to grow into a repeatable, scalable programme capable of reaching more young people nationwide.Following the successful pilot, DBA Africa is expanding Tackle It across 15 partner schools in Nairobi, Nakuru, and Western Kenya, directly reaching over 700 adolescents and indirectly impacting more than 1,500 through peer influence, workbooks, and digital outreach.

A spokesperson for the Trust added:

“We are proud to be supporting DBA Africa and the great work they do. Barbarians F.C. is supported across the world on the field and since its inception in 2004, Barbarians Rugby Charitable Trust has been repaying that support by itself supporting worthwhile causes across the world, and we are delighted to be continuing to do that.”

Looking Forward

DBA Africa envisions Tackle It as part of a wider education-through-sport ecosystem, connecting grassroots participation to life skills, safeguarding, and structured education pathways. Through pilot learning, school partnerships, and community engagement, the programme positions sport as a bridge, from talent to opportunity, from effort to education and from awareness to empowerment.

The goal is clear: to create concrete impact in youth development, providing young people with repeated, safe and supportive chances to develop skills that matter in school, in sport and in life. As the programme expands, DBA Africa seeks partners, schools, and corporate sponsors to support more cycles of Tackle It, ensuring that more young people gain access to mental health education, empowerment and life-changing opportunities through sport.