Fatuma Zarika: “Winning the WBC belt changed my life”

World Boxing Council Super Bantamweight champion, Fatuma Zarika, from Kenya, won the crown in October 2016 by defeating Jamaica’s Alicia Ashley.

A single mother of two daughters, Fatuma realized that he had to do something to change his life. She began to train at boxing at the age of 19 in an improvised gym. Simultaneously  taking care of her two daughters, she worked tirelessly until becoming professional in 2000.

Fatuma traveled to the United States. Her path was beset with problems because there were times when the payment for her fights was not enough to progress. Just she was about to return home, she got a fight for the world championship against Alicia Ashley.

Against  all odds she defeated Ashley and won the WBC green and gold belt.

“Winning the WBC belt changed my life. I was at the lowest point mentally and winning was the way God asked me not to surrender,” said Fatuma.

She returned home with the WBC belt and although in that fight there was not a good payment, now her family as part of the team and all of them together  support young people in gyms with the support of SportPesa, the sports company that is organizing the card in which she will defend her WBC crown against the Mexican Yamileth Mercado in Nairobi on September 8.