Foot for Love seeks donations to bring a South African women's football team to Paris tournament

The Federation of Gay Games supports this initiative, and hopes it will lead to the participation of the Thokozani Football Club in Gay Games 9 in Cleveland+Akron in August 2014:

Join the team “Foot For Love” by making a donation on the fundraising site Kisskissbankbank ! Help us to welcome in Paris a south-African female football team, so that they can participate to an exhibition match against discriminations on 24 June. This event will be followed by a whole week of actions against discriminations, including sport, culture, activism and festive moments.

Info HERE

Foot for Love

"Foot For Love" is an initiative to promote the fight against violence and discrimination targeting lesbians, particularly through sport. To do so, we invite to Paris a delegation of the Thokozani Football Club during a week punctuated by sport, cultural and activist events. The name of this club, located in a township in Durban celebrates Thokozani Qwabe, a lesbian soccer player murdered in 2007 because of her sexual orientation. Since then, many hate crimes (murders, “corrective rapes” ...) have been committed against lesbians or transgenders, in South Africa.

The Thokozani Football Club (TFC) was created in response to these violences by Zanele Muholi , photographer and activist working for the rights of women and homosexuals s in South Africa. On their website, they describe their aims as follows: “ As an all black lesbian-women soccer team, we at Thokozani believe that through sport and soccer, we can make a difference in the lives of other young and queer women struggling against homophobia and violence. We play for peace. We want to educate each other and our families, friends and communities that we exist, that we contribute to building a physically, socially, and emotionally healthy and democratic South African society, and that we deserve a life free of discrimination and violence due to homophobia. We have the right as athletes to play and compete in a safe and supportive environment no matter what our gender, race, class, or sexual orientation.”

The Thokozani Football Club

The club is affiliated to the South African Football Association (SAFA women's section) and plays in a league official (ABSA League). It currently has twenty lesbians players, aged from 18 to 41 years. The province of Kwa-Zulu Natal (Durban) is generally characterized by high levels of poverty, a very high HIV prevalence (which does not spare lesbians) and very high exposure of women and homosexuals to violence.

Les Dégommeuses at the Paris Football Arc en ciel football tournament at the TIP Paris International Tournament.