Seven women who are changing their worlds
Across the United States on the second of February women and girls are marking National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
Every year at the Homeless World Cup we meet powerful women who are pushing the boundaries in their communities, enabling others to do the same.
Football can be an escape, a place to find a new family and a passage to a new life. We wanted to take the opportunity to highlight seven brilliant women who have inspired us.
RUPANTI’S PASSPORT TO SUCCESS
|Image: Daniel Lipinski
Rupanti is an Indian woman, a daughter, a sister, and a very good football player. She might be small in stature, but be mis-led at your own risk, you are looking at a strong woman. Her strength, physicality and undeniable football talent won her a place in the Indian team
Rupanti is originally from a farming family in the eastern state of Kumari in Jharkhand, India. 2015 was a difficult year. Rupanti’s father and brother both died. Her father died of an illness and her brother was killed in a terrorist attack.
“When I play football, I feel as if I have everything I need. I can forget about everything else.”
It’s dangerous where she lives but she found solace on the football pitch and grabbed the opportunity to travel to Oslo in 2017 to represent her country at the Homeless World Cup.
“As soon as I go back to India I want to help other girls play football. My region is very dangerous, but I want girls to come out onto the streets and play and be more confident. I want this to happen through football.”
THE MOTHER OF REINVENTION
|Image: Edinburgh Photographic
From captaining her team on the field to leading the dancing post tournament at the recent Four Nations Challenge Cup in Edinburgh, Northern Ireland’s Louise McConnell displays enviable energy and enthusiasm that belies her years and journey in life.
“The players call me mumma-duck,” she laughs, “because there’s all these young ones and there’s me at 41!”
While she might be footie mum to her team-mates, Louise is also real-life mum to six – plus dog – and has undertaken something of a mother of reinventions to her life in recent years.
“I had a break-up in 2018,” she explains, “there were bad things going on and I left my partner of 12 years and took the kids and the dog. I was homeless and ended up in a hostel. After six months someone came round the hostel talking about Street Soccer and looking for more players so I went to training that night and that was it.”
IT’S ALL POSITIVE FOR INDONESIAN PLAYER ISYE
| Daniel Lipinski
Isye is 40 years old. She wears a sports hijab, she plays football with and against men, and she has HIV. She has fought and overcome barrier after barrier, from gender, age, religion, culture and infection. She is a multi-activist; from promoting HIV without stigma to female participation in sports whilst upholding religious and cultural beliefs.
“I am HIV positive and I want to represent the HIV community, the marginalised people in Indonesia and make sure everyone knows that they can play football too.”
A “tomboy”, widower, and mother of two, Isye has played football since she was a child. “I always liked to do the things that are known as ‘boy stuff’ like football. Other people think that is not right, maybe. But I want to show that it isn’t a problem playing soccer. It can sometimes feel uncomfortable playing with and against men here. But I want to be an inspiration for every woman in Indonesia, that women and women living with HIV can be doing everything, not just sleeping, housekeeping, and crying—everything!”
SAFETY, SOCCER, AND SUCCESS IN STAVANGER
|Image: Romain Kedochim
It’s entirely possible that of the 500-plus players here in Cardiff taking part in the Homeless World Cup, Team Norway’s Charlotte Fosse is one of the few who can call herself a grandmother.
A mother of five children aged between 10 and 23, the 42-year-old works as a motivational speaker and fronts a rock band in her home city of Stavanger in southwestern Norway.
Having experienced a life to date that has been marked by addiction, abuse, an abortion, five suicide attempts, and an attempt on her life by others, through football Fosse has been able to chart a new path in life.
“In life, football has given me everything. When I came to Stavanger, I left everything I had, my house, all my things I owned where I came from, on a little island on the west coast of Norway.
“I just put myself on a bus to Stavanger and I don’t look back. And then after two days of living in a women’s shelter, I went to play football with the local team. I would sleep in the clubhouse, and I started to clean and make dinner there. I was there every day,” she said.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
|Image: Daniel Lipinski
The Welsh dragon is a near ubiquitous sight around the Homeless World Cup in Cardiff. It’s on t-shirts, on billboards, it’s painted on kids’ faces, and it’s on the flag that flies high from Cardiff Castle nearby, peeking through the trees of Bute Park.
It’s now also on the thigh of Team Sweden player Marie Kopka in the form of a massive tattoo to help the 26-year-old remember her time at the tournament.
Approaching her final match with the Swedish women’s team, Kopka, from Gothenburg, tried to sum up her emotions.
“I’m feeling quite nice. It’s been a hell of a trip. Meeting people from a lot of different countries and stuff like that and it’s been wonderful. Even though we lost a couple of games, we still had fun. This is something you get to do once in a lifetime. Who can play in the world championships? It’s amazing,” she said.
PERIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA
| Image: Romain Kedochim
Nearly 4,500 miles separates the Homeless World Cup host city of Oslo and Kenyan capital Nairobi, and for Kenyan player Peris Nyakowa, the spirit of the tournament is helping her to cope with being so far away from her native city.
“I can say that I am a little homesick. It’s my first time outside of Kenya and I am very, very, very far away from home. But I’m still enjoying being here. Here I’ve found so many new people that treat you like you are part of their family. It’s like I’ve made a lot of new families.”
Nyakowa is captaining a Kenyan side that is making its first appearance at the tournament since winning in Paris back in 2011, and what she finds the most eye-opening part is the number of talented women turning out to represent their respective countries.
“When I go back, the thing I will most take with me will be the understanding that out here there are so many talented women who play football. And they are really, really good.”
IT’S A CAN-DO ATTITUDE FOR COACH EMILY CANCIENNE
The Homeless World Cup in Cardiff saw Austria bring a women’s team to compete for the first time.
And as far as the team is concerned, it seems that in coach Emily Cancienne they have the best possible person to lead the team in their inaugural competition participation.
That’s because the 27-year-old American is a professional player who plays in the Austrian Frauenliga with Sturm Graz and will soon compete in Champions League qualification for her club side against Sporting Braga, Riga FS and Apollon Limassol in Riga.
So how did a player brought up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and who had never left the USA until she finished university, end up coaching the Austrian women’s team in Cardiff?
“I finished my studies in Louisiana and two months later I decided I need to get out of the little town and go see the world. A friend of mine was playing professional football in Serbia and gave me a contact to Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia. And then in August of 2014 I left my home country for the first time and I went to Croatia, where I played for a year for Zagreb,” she said.
“Then I had an opportunity to go and play for Sturm Graz in Austria and I’ve been there since 2015. And after the migrant crisis in 2017 I wanted to do something, I wanted to help. So, I got in touch with the manager of the Austrian street football project.
|Image: Mile44/Alayah Quinn