However, care must equally be applied to ensure that girls’ and women’s participation in separate environments, or in specific sports, does not reinforce social divisions or generate unhelpful resistance from other members of society (Hayhurst et al. These considerations also point to the importance of adopting decentralised approaches that are sensitive to local cultural norms and engage all family and community members (Kay and Spaaij 2012), including boys and men, even in initiatives that may be specifically targeted at girls and women. Addressing this embedded and structured inequality is, therefore, a priority in itself. For young females, in particular, leadership experiences gained through sport-based initiatives may make distinctive contributions to their empowerment in other social, economic and political spheres (Lindsey et al.