This week I want to share an amazing opportunity I had upon arriving in Malawi that I didn't even know existed beforehand: Coaching tennis! As I have shared in past entries, the main sports here are netball for girls and football (soccer) for boys, along with a little volleyball and basketball here and there.
Growing up, I loved to play all kinds of sports. However, when I started high school, I decided to focus on only one sport: tennis. As a player and captain of the high school team, I found the sport becoming my favorite pastime. It has stayed that way ever since. So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when I arrived in Malawi and learned that tennis was a new sport beginning to sprout in the country. Even more so when I was presented with an opportunity to coach tennis to youth and children in an underserved Lilongwe community during my time here.
The name of the organization is MATCH Foundation. MATCH Foundation is a Malawian non-profit organization that focuses on empowering youth through sports and education programs. In fact, it has been really cool to hear the story of the founder. Her name is Tadala, a super driven and passionate woman from the southern region of Malawi. Like most people here, as a young girl, she had never heard of tennis.
