Doreen Nabwire

Early career

Born in Ngomongo estate in Korogocho and grew up in Mathare Valley, one of Nairobi's largest slums, Doreen Nabwire grew up with her five siblings and parents. She attended Valley Bridge Primary School in Huruma and Maina Wanjigi High School in Eastleigh. She started playing football on the streets at the age of ten and was discovered by players who noticed her talent and told her about a project being run by the Nobel Peace Prize nominated Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) with the aim of empowering young people through football. She wanted to join the women's team of Mathare United, but she was held back by her mother who felt that women were not meant to play football. She was later allowed to join the North Villas, a football club in MYSA after her father intervened. MYSA was being supported by the Norway Cup, the largest youth football tournament in the world which attracted over 1,000 teams. She was invited to trials for the MYSA team in 1998 and she made the team ahead of the tournament. From then onward, she was part of the team in three consecutive trips to the competition as a teenager. In 1999, she took part in the tournament for the first time with the U-14 team and later won in 2000 and 2001 as captain. She was promoted to the senior women's Mathare team where she played from 2002 to 2009.

Werder Bremen, 2009–2010

Nabwire joined SV Werder Bremen in the German second division in 2009. On 27 September 2009, during her debut…

In 2006, she was a member of the squad that represented Kenya in the first ever Street Football World Cup in 2006 held in Berlin, Germany, leading them to the title. It was this tournament that exposed her to Europe and gave her the opportunity to feature for international clubs. In 2006, she captained the Kenya under-20 against Nigeria and also played in matches against Djibouti and Cameroon.

Senior national team

Nabwire played for the Kenya women's national football team and served as the skipper at one point. She made her debut for the team in 2001 at the age of 15 in a friendly match against Ethiopia, where she played 70 minutes before being taken off. In 2016, she doubled as a player and team manager for the team. She served in that role in September 2016 at the 2016 CECAFA Women's Championship where Kenya lost to Tanzania in the finals. She was part of the Harambee Starlets squad that qualified for the 2016 Africa Women Cup of Nations (AWCON) in Cameroon for the first time in the country's history.

Managerial career

After retiring from playing football, Nabwire continued her involvement in football. She worked as a coach, while working with NGOs to improve women's football in Kenya. She also worked with a Premier League team. From 2010 to 2011, while playing for FC Zwolle, she obtained the UEFA-C coaching license at the Landstede Sportcentrum in Zwolle. After returning to Kenya from the Netherlands, she became a trainer at the Nairobi-based National Youth Talent Academy. Nabwire also worked as a Player-coach specifically as an assistant coach for Matuu FC, which he helped in securing the 2012 Kenyan Women's Premier League. In March 2013, she left Matuu and worked as a trainer of FKF Girls Premier League club MOYAS Ladies. Since 2016 she has been the team manager of the Kenyan women's national team Harambee Starlets, which qualified for the finals of the Africa Cup for the first time in April 2016. She currently holds the CAF B License after undergoing the CAF training course in September 2020 in Kenya.

Football Kenya Federation

Since 2016, she had been holding a key administrative role at the Football Kenya Federation including working as the Women's Football Development Officer and Director of Women's football. With this, her role includes, heading the women's desk at the federation, managing and running the Women's leagues and developing and implementing grassroots women football activities. She also doubles as the Football Kenya Federation (FKF)'s…

Family life

Nabwire comes from a footballing family. She is the third of a family of six. Her brother Eric Johana Omondi plays for Jönköpings Södra and previously played for Mathare United, while Felix Oucho also played for Mathare United and is currently a coach at a club in Busia. Her other brother, Anthony Kadudu featured for Tusker FC while her younger sister, Christine Nafula is a footballer who plays for the Kenya women's national team. She has three sons.

Girls Unlimited

In 2009, she co-founded Girls Unlimited, a Community Based Organization (CBO) which uses a variety of sports including football, tennis, volleyball and netball to nurture and develop youths' talents to bring social change and development in communities in Kenya. The organization targets girls in primary and secondary schools within Kenyan communities and empowers them by teaching life skills, decision making and ways to improve their confidence. Since 2015, the organization has been organizing an annual women's football tournament dubbed the Dada Football Tournament to promote women's football in Kenya.

Other activities

Nabwire is an avid Manchester United fan. A documentary of her life titled Dodo – between corrugated iron and the world stage – ("Zwischen Wellblech und Weltbühne") by German journalist and documentary filmmaker Herbert Ostwald was released in 2009 at the 6th International Football Film Festival 11mm in Berlin. Excerpts of the documentary were shown on…