NOC-K celebrates women at Akina Dada Sports Festival

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 12 – The National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) on Saturday launched a Sports Festival dubbed ‘Kina dada sports festival’ at Strathmore University to mark and celebrate the International Women’s Day.

The International Women’s Day themed, ‘Break the Bias’ was celebrated March 8 across the globe.

Kenya led by athletics legend Tegla Loroupe, belatedly marked the Day with great reflections and assessment of the milestones achieved so far and the challenges ahead in creating an enabling environment and equal opportunity for Kenyan women at all levels.

The sports Festival and fun day saw women take part in several sports activities like the football-7-Aside, handball, tennis, volleyball and its beach counterpart, 3 X 3 Basketball, Hockey-5-Aside and Chess.

The event was presided by NOC-K Executive members and consisted of 200 athletes from each federation, technical officials and facilitators.

Speaking at the launch, NOC-K Secretary General Francis Mutuku, called for the need of the power of the sports women in the society.

“The theme today is to protect, strengthen and celebrate women is a full cycle on protecting the girl child and the young athlete at the tender age, strengthening the woman and her values, beliefs and skills and celebrating legends when they hang their boots after representing our country,” Mutuku said.

As part of NOC-K strategy and commitment to its legacy plan, it’s committed to recognize women in sports, increase participation and opportunities for women in sports and tackle Gender issues.

NOC-K has achieved a great deal in promoting qualification, support and preparations of women with a recent 56% women participation in the Tokyo Olympic Games with an inclusion of gender welfare matters in the athletes’ contracts.

Three women’s teams have qualified for Commonwealth Games, Hockey, Beach Volleyball and 3×3 Basketball which will be making its debut at the games.