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Gender Equity
“We're all about being together as a family”: Community sports program fosters newcomer immigrant girls' academic achievement, resilience, and coping was published by the American Journal of Community Psychology (2025) by Sita G. Patel, Department of Clinical Psychology, Palo Alto University and found that participation in a community soccer program fostered resilience and coping for immigrant girls.
This is so important because studies show that female athletes are at high rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges compared to their male counterparts. And that is only after they have the opportunity to be an athlete at all.
In countries and communities where girls are often dissuaded from playing sports, Soccer Without Borders is working at the forefront of getting girls access to soccer and play through Equal Play Effect and launching GG5 Accelerators in Uganda and the United States advancing gender equity plans and girls and women players, coaches and referees giving girls all the benefits of play that boys historically had.
And we also work and train on the positive masculinity programming Coaching Boys Into Men (CBIM) through our partnership with Futures Without Violence as we know that there is truly no gender equity if boys and men are not engaged and involved in understanding the threats of toxic masculinity.
The Long Road Ahead
42% of sports tickets are purchased by women, but women hold only 10% of executive roles in sports organizations
Only 15% of executives in major sports leagues are women
55% of youth participating in sports are girls, but they account for only 33% of leadership roles in youth sports organizations
Only 2% of sports governing body presidents are women
SWB is creating systems change by giving girls and women a chance at all the positive benefits of play, access to pathways to employability in professional sports, youth leadership and empowerment opportunities and academic achievement.
