"I Felt Safe, I Felt Supported, I Felt Valued": Fathima's PeacePlayers Journey
July 21, 2026
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Fathima grew up navigating inequality and limited opportunities, in a community where young people did always feel safe to be themselves. “There were times where opportunities felt limited… we struggled to find spaces where we could express ourselves freely,” she recalls. Those challenges shaped her—but they also sparked a desire to create change.
When she joined PeacePlayers two years ago, she expected to simply play basketball. Instead, she found something much deeper: a community. “I felt safe, I felt supported, I felt valued,” she says.
At the beginning, she struggled with confidence and social anxiety. But with encouragement from coaches and peers, she began to step outside her comfort zone. “Speaking now, you wouldn’t ever think I experienced social anxiety… they always reminded me that my voice matters.” Through that journey, she not only built skills on the court, but discovered her own strength and leadership.
Though basketball was what originally drew Fathima to PeacePlayers, she started out with no basketball experience. “I couldn’t even bounce a ball to save my life,” she laughs. While she felt anxiety about not yet having basketball skills, her coaches purposefully put her in games to help her push through that anxiety.
“Being part of PeacePlayers was one of the best things that could happen to me,” Fathima reflects. PeacePlayers has allowed Fathima to reach outside of her home community, and to serve as a platform for the change she wants to create.
Fathima explains that South Africa is sometimes referred to as the Rainbow Nation to highlight its cultural diversity. Ubuntu, she says, is the aspiration for all of these communities to work together to live in peace. With the compassion that she learned through PeacePlayers, and with her value of ubuntu, Fathima is inspired to keep creating change, and to address issues that she recognizes in her community:
“Seeing the youth, and these opportunities being limited for many of us, and crime and peer pressure in my community increasing by the day—it really lit something in me where I didn’t want to accept it that way and I didn’t want it to stay that way,” Fathima explains. “So it made me want to change things. And I think that’s what drove me to want to lead. Not for recognition, but rather to change my community for the better and inspire youth like myself, girls, boys as teenagers who lose hope very easily.”
