SA’s first woman commentator, Kass Naidoo, continues to inspire with gsport4girls
A household name that has spent years in the homes and hearts of cricket lovers, has shared her story with Faheedah Crouch.
Born and bred in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, Kass spent the beginning of her career as a sportscaster chatting to women in sport who despite coming home with victory, weren’t recognised for their achievements.
There was a gap that needed to be filled, and so gsport4girls was born.
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“I was hosting a radio sports show in 2005. I remember speaking to sports women who always shared stories of strife and struggle, even though they were winning medals,” Kass recalled.
“I decided that I would quit my radio show, obviously stay with the cricket commentary, and do something for women's sport and then my husband Ryk and I took a long walk and we just pondered, like, what could we do that is cost effective because obviously at the time there wasn't a lot of funding to do something."
We hopped on to Google, we taught ourselves how to build a website, and we decided to plug the information gap.
Fast forward to today, more than 9,000 stories and 18 gsport Awards later, Kass and the long-standing initiative have accomplished the unimaginable.
“I don't think we thought about it much to be honest. I think we knew that we had to take action and that was the most important thing.
“We don't allow ourselves to reflect too much, because I think the present-day actions are so important, it's so often the case where we achieve things and then we sit there, keep talking about what we achieve. And I think as an initiative we realise that unless we advance, women's sport doesn't.
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“But where we are today means that there is huge responsibility in terms of how we continue to activate gsport."
gsport4girls host their second annual gsport Business Breakfast in partnership with Henry Africa on the 22nd of September. It marks the end of the gsport18 campaign with the aim to boost the commercialisation of women’s sport.
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