Karen Quidditch Club Brings Sport to Africa
The Karen Quidditch Club was founded in May 2013 by John Ssentamu, a teacher in Uganda, along with the help of Karen Kumaki, the IQA's International Director. Being the first African quidditch club to be active within the IQA, it's no wonder that this team has started a buzz on the internet.
Ssentamu first learned about quidditch after reading Harry Potter: “When I was reading about Harry Potter, I learned that there is a game called quidditch and I felt interested to learn more about it,” he said. After he decided that he wanted to create a quidditch team in Uganda, he reached out to many members of the IQA before eventually contacting Kumaki who, due to her position, was put in charge of helping him form the club. When Kumaki first got in touch with Ssentamu, he wasn't far along in his development: “He hadn't started a team yet; he had just heard a fair bit about the sport and was interested in starting his own team and wanted to know what he had to do,” she said. Kumaki continued, explaining how she helped him form the club: “I gave him a basic introduction to the sport, sent him the rule book and handbook, and gave him some advice on how to start a team and get kids playing. It escalated pretty quickly and he got the team going within a week or two from that first moment of contact.”
While the Karen Quidditch Club is still brand new, the group is fairly large, with five all-female teams with 10 players each. These teams practice often and have generated so much excitement in Uganda that Ssentamu hopes to create a club for boys as well. The clubs are single-sex, as is the norm in Uganda for schools and sports teams.
Although the team has certainly been successful since its humble beginnings just one month ago, Ssentamu has many goals for both the team and sport in Uganda. He explained his goals as the following in an emailed statement:
"a) to see that this games is well understood and played all over Uganda and maybe Africa. b) mobilize youth and children who are not part of the common games being part of Quidditch and excelling in all ways. c) visit offices of National Council of Sports this is the government arm in charge of all sports in Uganda to register Quidditch with the office. d) Widen the friendship network through quidditch as there is still untapped networking opportunities. e) Developing a professional league here in Uganda and maybe Africa for Quidditch and finally joining world cup for quidditch.”While the Karen Quidditch Club isn't the first group in Africa to play the sport--teams have in the past existed in, or currently exist in, places such as South Africa and Tunisia--they are the first to work actively with the IQA. When the Karen Quidditch Club grows out of its infancy stage, Kumaki hopes to work with the group to grow quidditch in Africa: “Once the team is more established, I [will] work with them to give advice on raising money and expanding the sport in their area so they have teams to play.” She continued, “But for now it's mostly up to John to get the team started and growing.”
IQA Commissioner Alex Benepe is also excited by the team's development, and he is hopeful for the group's future. He stated, “It's exciting enough every time quidditch expands to a new country, let alone to a new continent. I'm inspired by Mr. Ssentamu's spirit and dedication both to the kids in his community and to the sport itself - he truly and rightly believes in the potential of quidditch to bring people together and improve lives. I see a lot of spirit in this new group in Uganda, and I look forward to the day that they can send a team to the World Cup.” In order to honor Kumaki's help in forming the team, Ssentamu chose to name the new team the Karen Quidditch Club. “I'm honored that they feel like I have done enough to help them to name the team after me. I did try to push them to some other options, since it seemed like more than I deserve for doing my job, but it has been insisted that the team needs to remember who has helped them, so I've let them make the decision as they will,” Kumaki said.
