(18 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monrovia, Liberia – 14 June 2025
1. Wide of the Samuel Kanyon Doe Stadium during a kickball match
2. Various of women of the Girls of Aries team singing together before a game
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Saydah A. Yarbah, professional kickball player:
“This game is our own traditional sport. I mean, we’ve been playing this game from childhood, so we have grown, we have grown passion for this game. This game brings us together, our young people, young girls. It made us to leave some other bad activities, we come around, play kickball, get to know new friends.”
++INCLUDES SHOT 2++
4. Women walk onto the field during a game
5. Mid of Perryline Jimmie kicking ball
6. SOUNDBITE (Pidgin English) Perryline Jimmie, professional kickball player:
“For instance when I was a young girl, I did like a lot of others who started playing in their community, in the yard and different places.”
++INCLUDES SHOT 7++
7. Mid of player pitching ball
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Emmanuel Whea, president, Liberia Kickball Federation:
“Some of the objectives of establishing the federation at the time, was to bring the ladies together and use them during the reconciliation process of Liberia. You know, we had just left the civil war, and everybody had just scattered. We needed to bring them together before the peace messages could be given out.”
++INCLUDES SHOT 9 AND 10++
9. Various of Jimmie looking on between innings
10. Various of the team chatting before a game
STORYLINE:
Liberia is bringing women together through the unique sport of kickball – a mix of soccer and baseball.
Kickball has become the second most popular sport in the country, and the national league is fuelling even more popularity.
A member of the Girls of Aries team, Saydah A. Yarbah, says the sport is "traditional".
“We’ve been playing this game from childhood, so we have grown, we have grown passion for this game. This game brings us together, our young people, young girls. It made us leave some other bad activities, we come around, play kickball, get to know new friends. So this is what I like about kickball.”
Kickball was founded in the 1960s by Cherry Jackson, a Peace Corps volunteer, who was teaching in an all-girls school in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city.
Jackson noticed that, unlike the boys, her students didn’t play sports.
Its now played everywhere from schoolyards to public squares and dirt fields.
Liberia’s National Kickball League, only for women, was created in 1994 to bring people together after a ravaging civil war.
Emmanuel Whea is the President of the Liberia Kickball Federation, and says the game bonded communities which had been split by the conflict.
“We had just left the civil war, and everybody had just scattered. We needed to bring them together before the peace messages could be given out.”
Weah has big plans — he wants to expand the professional kickball league to men and introduce it in other countries in the region.
But his mission has been complicated by a lack of resources.
AP video by Annie Risemberg
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