"I found my strength again": Shafak’s journey from Khartoum to the football pitch in Egypt
"I found my strength again": Shafak’s journey from Khartoum to the football pitch in Egypt
At 25, Shafak finds joy and strength on the football field through UNHCR’s Sports for Protection programme.
When the war reached her neighborhood in Khartoum in 2023, 25-year-old Shafak had only a few exams left to complete her engineering degree. Instead of celebrating her graduation, she found herself packing hurriedly, fleeing with her mother and four younger siblings in search of safety.
“We left so quickly I didn’t even have time to take my notebooks,” she recalls. “I kept thinking, ‘I was so close to becoming an engineer. How did everything disappear overnight?’”
Shafak’s story is one of millions. As the conflict in Sudan approaches its fourth year, it has become the largest displacement crisis in the world. Nearly 12 million people have been forced from their homes—meaning one in three Sudanese is now displaced. Today, one in six internally displaced people globally is from Sudan, and one in thirteen refugees worldwide is Sudanese.
After a difficult journey, the family finally reached 6 October City, a place that has become home to thousands of refugee families. Egypt itself has witnessed a dramatic shift: since the start of the war, the number of registered Sudanese refugees has increased fourteenfold, making it the largest recipient of new individual asylum applications worldwide.
“My siblings enrolled in Sudanese schools here, and my mother and I had to start working right away just to cover basic needs,” she explains. “There was no space left for studying or dreaming.”
Things began to shift when her family started receiving cash assistance from UNHCR.
“Life became a little less stressful,” she says softly. “For the first time, I could think beyond survival. I had time again. Time to breathe. Time to study.”
With the financial pressure eased, Shafak returned to her textbooks, this time online, and committed herself to finishing her engineering degree.
While searching for opportunities online, she came across a link to Terre des Hommes (TdH) and enrolled in several of their courses.
“I started going regularly,” she says. “It opened my mind, but what changed me the most was the Sports for Protection program I discovered there.”
The program brought together young people, Egyptians and refugees of different nationalities, for three months of sports, teamwork, and life-skills training.
The program, implemented by UNHCR Egypt in partnership with Terre des Hommes (TdH) and the Ministry of Youth and Sports, uses sports, particularly football, to provide psychosocial support, improve well-being, strengthen social cohesion, and equip young people with essential life skills in safe environments.
“It wasn’t just about exercise,” she explains. “We learned communication, confidence, leadership… and we became real friends. I met Egyptian girls, Syrian girls, South Sudanese girls, people I never imagined I’d meet.”
Before joining, Shafak thought sports weren’t “for girls like her.”
“Honestly, I used to believe sports were mainly for boys,” she laughs. “Even though I knew there were great female champions in history, I never thought sports mattered for girls in my own life.”
That changed the first time she walked onto the pitch.
“I felt free. Free from everything I’d been carrying. Free from worry, fear, the pressure,” she says. “And then I realized, I love football. Against all odds, I fell in love with the game.”
Today, between finishing her engineering degree, supporting her family, and attending sports sessions, Shafak feels something she hasn’t felt in a long time: direction.
“I’m planning to continue playing,” she says, her face lighting up. “Football showed me that I am stronger than I thought. It gave me courage back.”
For Shafak, football was more than a recreational activity, it was a pathway to healing, confidence, and community.
“When I look back at my journey, I realize that I didn’t just escape war,” she says. “I found a new version of myself here in Egypt.”
