Nabra stands alongside the running track. Her own body poised as if on the cusp of launching into its own sprint, her toes dance at the very edge of the solid chalk line drawn across Kakuma’s red-dirt.
The runners passed, Nabra claps her hands and skips forward; her eyes never leave the four runners whose dust still settles at her feet. Her gaze stretches down the track as her arms raise in anticipation of celebration. Who will cross the finish line first? It hardly matters. Whoever finishes is cause for an eruption of celebration. The second the race finishes, Nabra’s whole body lifts off the ground as she leaps in victory with her athletics peers.
It’s 6:45am.
AHEEN’s Kids Athletics certified facilitators wrap up the morning’s training with the young athletes. The group of 12–15-year-old refugee girls and boys refuels with milk and biscuits before the coach takes them to school. Part of a World Athletics initiative, the AHEEN Kids Athletics team is the only team in a refugee camp.
On Kids Athletics Day this year, the AHEEN facilitators designed a 10-station program for the wider Kakuma/Kalobeyei student body to take part in. Nabra’s classmates formed teams comprising students from each of Kakuma/Kalobeyei’s four schools that participate in the AHEEN Kids Athletics Program.
Since 2022, World Athletics Day (May 7) has also become Kids Athletics Day, with programming running for the entire month of May.
The global campaign inspires a love of movement in children. Five years into the campaign, World Athletics celebrates over 2-1/2 million children taking part worldwide since its inception. Over 400,000 of them live in Kenya.
World Athletics makes plug-and-play resources available to schools and community groups around the world to organize activities for kids of all ages. AHEEN Kids Athletics facilitators and older AHEEN youth athletes design and facilitate Kakuma’s participation in this global day.
They run. They throw. They jump. They cheer. They wait with bated breath. They catch their breath. They laugh. They shout.
They catch a love of athletics, an appreciation for what movement and teamwork can bring to our lives.
AHEEN sees these kids’ involvement with athletics as the first step in a lifelong journey of learning. Resilience does not sprout overnight; it is nurtured over time.
Here on Kids Athletics Day, just as every morning before school for AHEEN’s 100 young athletes, AHEEN sows the first seeds that will, over many years, grow them into the kind of learners who persevere, work together, stay curious—the kind of learners who can withstand the rigors of higher education and become contributing participants in a thriving community.