Valentina Quaranta Sports Advocate

Valentina Quaranta was born in Piedmont, Italy. As a child, she fell in love with all kinds of sports, but especially field hockey. At the age of 9, she touched her first hockey stick and hasn’t let go since. She played on the Italian National Team for 10 years, combining the sport with her studies. She graduated from university with a masters degree in criminal psychology. After graduation, she left Italy and hockey for a year of civil service, applying to work in Tanzania for a year at the NGO, COPE. For a year in rural Tanzania, she taught small children and worked with local teachers to improve their teaching. That year helped her to see things in a new way, changing her perspective and ideas.

A year later after she left, she returned as head office coordinator with COPE in Dar es Salaam. In her free time, she began to revive the women’s hockey team by coaching and finding the money to support it. Within three months, they put together a team that would compete at the Africa Cup of Nations. In 2014, the following year, a new team composed by young women had been built. Hockey was introduced in local schools and universities. When she started training with the girls, she only had five balls. Today, hockey is growing from the grassroots level at a rapid pace!