The unbreakable spirit: How Atoot is empowering girls in southern Nepal through football

Hailing from Iowa, United States, where sport first sparked her passion, Sarah Van Vooren eventually found her purpose in southern Nepal. In 2018, she joined forces with her co-founder, Mashreeb Aryal to create a grassroots football-for-Good organisation, Atoot, dedicated to empowering local Nepalese girls. Her journey was not built in a year; rather, it was forged over two decades of unwavering commitment and global exploration. Her travels and international work experiences across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa have helped her understand the world, revealing disparities in access to sports for young women and girls, driving her extensive work within the Sport for Development sector, where she believes in the power of sport to be a catalyst for positive social change. 

Bonito: Sarah, could you please tell us about your journey into the Sport for Development sector that ultimately brought you to Nepal and led you to co-found Atoot?

Sarah: I was born and raised in Iowa, the U.S., and I played sports my whole life. I played pretty much every sport you can think of. I was also very fortunate to grow up in a strong, empowering family, with so many amazing women around who coached and mentored me throughout my childhood. I did not realise at the time how unusual that was; I thought that was normal. When I was 19, I spent a summer studying in Rome, and that experience completely changed my perspective. I realised how much I did not know about the world. I travelled, I met people from different backgrounds, and became hungry to keep exploring and learning. While living in Italy, I became increasingly interested in global politics and the experiences of refugees and displaced people. Many of my friends in Rome were refugees or came from refugee backgrounds, which made me want to better understand global issues and conflicts.

I eventually decided to pursue a master's in International Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin, which was a really important experience for me because we learned from practitioners working in grassroots organisations. I became particularly interested in localised approaches, grassroots work, and the importance of long-term development & sustainability. After my master's, I started working with a small grassroots organisation focused on peacebuilding and conflict resolution. While researching refugees, particularly those from the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, I came across a story about UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham visiting a refugee camp to run football sessions for children. 

What really struck me were the children's reactions. For those two hours, football had given them a sense of happiness and relief from everything they were carrying. That was when something clicked for me. I had always loved sport, but I had never really thought about using it as a tool for development, change, or conflict resolution, which is where I started my own research into football for good, particularly around girls' empowerment. This led me to a small grassroots organisation in India, where I saw girls who had never really had opportunities in their lives. I spent a year working for them, and it completely changed my outlook. 

After my experience in India, I wanted to see how this type of work functioned in other parts of the world. I worked in Cambodia, the Philippines, Haiti, Jordan, and Kenya. I found myself working on restructuring organisations and, importantly, mentoring local people. I realised that it was not only the girls who needed opportunities; young adults and local coaches needed mentorship, support, and someone to believe in them. Through all my experiences, I came to understand what worked and what didn't in grassroots organisations, and I felt ready to create something of my own through a local lens in a place in the world where girls have no opportunities.

I had previously worked in India with my incredible co-founder, Mashreeb Aryal, who is from Nepal. I was surprised by how forward-thinking and feminist he was, and at the same time, he always wanted to return to his country and create opportunities for girls and women. While I was in Kenya, I called him and proposed that we start something together in Nepal. We wanted to build a team of amazing young women who could do the work themselves and eventually make the organisation their own. I proposed the idea in 2018, moved to Nepal, and that's how Atoot started.

Bonito: When you first started Atoot, what did you see in the girl communities you worked with that made you feel something needed to change?

Sarah: Before starting Atoot, I had already travelled extensively and seen how severe the lack of opportunities for girls could be in different parts of the world. That was one of the reasons I became interested in working with girls. What really changed my outlook was seeing girls who had literally never had an opportunity in their lives seize every small opportunity the organisation offered them. I fell in love with that. With Atoot, I wanted to put it in a place where girls had very few opportunities. We wanted the girls to eventually understand that this was also theirs and, importantly, that their voice mattered. Our role was to help them understand things better and allow them to develop their knowledge and confidence.

Those are the things that made me feel that something needed to change; it wasn't about coming in and changing their lives for them. It was all about creating opportunities they had not had before, giving them space to find their voices, and eventually making sure they themselves could take ownership of what we were building.

Bonito: Why did you choose football as a vehicle for social change, particularly for girls and young women? Nepal has a strong cricket culture, so why did you choose football rather than another sport?

Sarah: Ironically, cricket is less popular than football in Nepal. You don't hear much about football because ANFA governs it terribly; there are no structures, no pathways, basically nothing there. Football is the most popular game in Nepal, and you will always find people watching it. People are really into the English Premier League, and it is massive. The German Bundesliga, the Champions League, and the World Cup are also huge in Nepal.

At the grassroots level, you will see people playing with a ball all around Nepal; you will see boys and men playing, but you will not see girls and women. That's the biggest difference. Over the past ten years, many futsal courts have also popped up throughout Nepal. It is becoming a big thing; the cost is relatively reasonable, even for people who don't have a lot of money, so football really blossomed. For me, I have seen what football can do from my childhood, from living in Italy, travelling around the world and understanding how insane this game is, and from working with football for good organisations. I found that football was more accessible for girls.

I also personally want to introduce Tennis. I am obsessed with tennis. We want to bring more sports to provide access, availability, and opportunity, but for me, I think football is such a global, amazing, and simple sport to play anywhere, and that's what we have to do for our girls at Atoot.

Bonito: Atoot combines football with education, such as skills development and community engagement. How do these different elements work to create lasting change in the lives of the girls you work with?

Sarah: We do have structured life-skills sessions once or twice a week, depending on what is happening, but within our football sessions, the life-skills girls are learning, without realising it, are countless. When we started, we understood you could not just say something and expect the girls to know what it meant. You can't just say "Teamwork" and assume they understand what Teamwork is.

We usually have a theme that runs through the month, and it generally comes from what the girls themselves are dealing with and learning. As they spend more years with us, their access to things grows as well. Now we have computers, a computer lab, and books, and they are learning all these new things. We take note of what everyone is experiencing and use that to shape what we cover each month, including within the football sessions.

For example, if we are learning colours or numbers in our classes, we can bring those concepts into football by incorporating football-related terms. Community engagement is connected to all this too; we talk about what we are teaching the girls and what they are learning with their families and communities. We also ask parents if they are seeing changes and differences, and the answer is constantly yes. Parents become impressed by their daughters and start giving more thought to the possibility of their daughters having a future in Nepal. That kind of change takes years, but when you can plant those seeds, that's the most important thing. The girls take those into their lives, and they start putting down roots.

Bonito: Can you share a particular girl or moment that has stayed with you and capture what you are trying to achieve?

Sarah: We have so many things happening every day. We don't have one big thing. When we first started, these girls could not speak; literally, they could not speak. They did not smile because that's what they are supposed to do their whole lives.

When we first started working with girls, some of the changes we saw were incredibly small but incredibly significant. Some of them could not speak; they would stare at the ground and not smile. Then, little by little, you would see someone look you in the eye and give you a half-smile, and their voices, getting louder, a girl learning a new English word, and then actually using it, could be a massive achievement. These are the smallest and most amazing achievements these girls have made every day for eight years since the birth of Atoot in 2018

Bonito: What are the biggest challenges girls face in the communities where Atoot works, and what challenges have you faced as an organisation trying to create the change

Sarah: In general, corruption and bureaucracy in Nepal are major challenges. Compared to the U.S., it is completely different; there is no way to get things done without corruption and bribes. And we will never pay a bribe. We will never be corrupt, no matter how hard it is. It takes time; it is frustrating and exhausting, but we have our morals and our ethics. In Nepal, our status must be renewed every year through the Social Welfare Council, and that process is another opportunity for people to demand bribes. We really struggle with this every year. 

Bonito: After working in Nepal and with these communities for several years, have you learned something from the girls, or has your understanding of football changed for good?

Sarah: I learned that we cannot assume that what we think is good for girls is necessarily what they need; we have to look at everything through the lens of what actually exists and what they need. We pick up from where they are, what they are doing, learning, and struggling with, and then we use that in our programming. 

Everybody is different, and everyone learns at their own pace, so we have to adapt as well. We have to make sure the girls can learn in a way they understand, then actually retain and use it in their lives. Besides, I learned that sustainability means giving the girls ownership and responsibility; that's why we are now training the girls who have been with us the longest to become assistant coaches, facilitators, and to take on other roles within Atoot in the future. For me, that has changed how I think about football for good. It is not about us coming in and doing something for the girls; it is about creating something that eventually becomes theirs.

Bonito: Looking ahead, what do you want Atoot to become, and what does success look like for you for the girls in 5 or 10 years?

Sarah: For myself, I hope I am not part of the picture over the next 10 years. I will always be a co-founder, working with partners, helping to develop relationships, ensuring grants go to my colleagues, and supporting them. I have already done 7000% of the work since co-founding Atoot. I hope that in 10 years, I will be doing 7% of the work. I want this to be so much a part of them; I really want all of them doing it. They have the potential; they can do it.

By now, so much of what's happening within Atoot comes from the girls themselves and my colleagues, which is amazing. Of course, we have to continue supporting them. I hope that people are inviting all my colleagues from Atoot to events and conversations across the world.I hope I am not making interviews, that people no longer know my name, and that the only ones coming out are my colleagues and the girls of Atoot.

Bonito: Anything else you would like to share with Bonito Foundation?

Sarah: At Atoot, we are a team, and the dedication you mentioned is not mine alone; it is my entire team and everyone who has previously worked with Atoot. It is all those who are in the field every day who do the work; it is not me alone.