This story is featured as part of SUCCEED Stories, through the SUCCEED Framework. SUCCEED (Supporting Communities Empowerment & Development through Sport for All) is a global framework dedicated to fostering community empowerment and development through capacity building in Sport for All. Led by TAFISA in collaboration with the IOC through its Olympism365 strategy, SUCCEED aims to provide a unified and synergistic approach towards building the capacity of Sport for All stakeholders.
On a field in Sehlabathebe, Ha Mavuka, something unexpected happened. People who had never thought of themselves as sporting, older community members, women, young children, showed up and joined in. And then the elders brought out the traditional games. Games that carried memory and meaning, shared across generations on an open mountainside in Lesotho.
That moment was the clearest proof yet that what Nkopane Rajoale had built was working. A football coach and community sports leader from the Qacha's Nek District, Nkopane established the Sehlabathebe Water Lilies Football Club to develop female players and promote gender equality in sport. Through the TAFISA Certified Leadership Course in Sport for All, he gained the tools to go further - designing and delivering the Enhancing Community Health through Sport for All and Sound Life Choices project, bringing together people of all ages and abilities for the first time.
"You do not need perfect facilities or perfect circumstances to change lives. You only need the courage to begin."
Discover Nkopane's full story
