Uganda’s Ex-international defender Jean Sseninde has made it to the final three in the Imperial African Woman category of the 2022 Momentum Gsport Awards.
The award recognizes women with a significant impact on the growth of women Sports in South Africa and the continent as a whole.
Besides capping for Uganda women’s national soccer team, Jean played professional football as a defender in England for the London Phoenix Ladies FC, Charlton Athletic Women’s Football Club, Crystal Palace and Queens Park Rangers Ladies Football Club (QPR LFC), where She was for three seasons.
Currently, She runs a non profit organization back at home in Uganda founded in 2006 that nurtures sporting talent and as well creates equal opportunities for girls and women in football.
Through the Sseninde Women’s Development Cup initiative, She has raised the profile of women’s sports in Uganda. All this making her eligible for nomination in this category, given the criteria.
Sseninde says She dedicates the nominations, awards and recognition She gets at all stages to the girls and boys who put in effort to realize a future in sports as they look up to her as an inspiration.
“For me, This nomination/opportunity is about inspiring young ladies with dreams to succeed in the sport because we sacrifice everything with little support and investment. This is to inspire generations of girls and boys who have given everything to the sport never to give up and also to continue creating opportunities for girls to have access to sports.” Jean told Afrosports.
The Jean Sseninde foundation has run four successful women football tournaments dubbed the Sseninde Women’s Development Cup, with over 1000 women/girls participating through which some of the girls have made it to the national team.
About the gsportAwards
The awards started after the launch of the gsport4girls, an online platform that provides daily coverage of women’s Sports with the aim of closing the gap in coverage given to Men’s Sport since South African Women’s Sport was hardly given enough publicity by then.
For the award, Jean is nominated along with South African match official Akhona Makalima known for being the first female soccer referee in South Africa to be certified by FIFA, and also officiating at the 2022 Total Energies WAFCON in Morocco.
Still in the same category is long-distance runner Helalia Johannes who won a bronze at the commonwealth games in Birmingham and has always managed to make a podium finish in many of her races.
Voting is currently open on the gsport website gsport.co.za/voting and Jean Sseninde took to her Twitter, rallying friends and the football family to vote for her.
She couldn’t hide her excitement as She told Afrosports of how She shared the good news with her family.
“I received an email and I didn’t believe it until I got a message then I realised it was real. I told my family about it and they have been happy for me including my close friends.” She chatted
The nomination is only a one-off as She has been nominated for numerous awards and notably won the Philanthropic Endeavour Leadership award at the prestigious Best Of Africa Awards (BOA) in 2018.
