Determination doesn’t have to be loud. Sometimes the biggest accomplishments come from a quiet resolve, and that's exactly how Kadeisha Buchanan has achieved so much already.
The Canadian international is one of the most highly regarded defenders in the world. Before arriving at Chelsea, she’d already lifted the Champions League trophy under Sonia Bompastor at Lyon and won an Olympic gold medal in 2020.
None of these achievements came without struggle. Buchanan grew up alongside her siblings in a single-parent household. Money was scarce.
Now, as an established member of the Chelsea team and with over 150 appearances for Canada under her belt, you could say she’s made it. Job done.
Buchanan thinks otherwise. With a new foundation set up as part of FIFA’s Player Impact Programme, she wants to help young girls from single-parent families thrive by taking away some of the challenges she once faced.
And as we sat down at our Cobham training ground before the international break, she spoke with that quiet – yet fierce – resolve to make a real difference to others.
According to her foundation’s own research, 67,000 single-parent families are living below the poverty line in Canada. That’s one of the biggest exclusionary factors for those children playing football, but as Kadeisha explains, living in a one-parent household can also come with a social stigma attached.
‘My mum was a single parent with three daughters in football, and the biggest barrier was not having financial support,’ she says. ‘Soccer is not cheap in Canada, so that's a big burden. Even just being able to have the transportation to us to get to games was a big one. Also, funding for special tournaments, for example, going to America. Those cost a lot of money.
‘Things like that were really tough on us. It was also other parents knowing that my mum is a single mother, I feel like the dynamics of it were a bit weird as well. I really felt that.
‘Sometimes the coach's decisions were impacted, in terms of not picking you for the next team, because you can’t pay for the registration fee for that year. I felt excluded. Those are a few things that really impacted me just because I'm from a single-parent household.’
Kadeisha explains there was no bidding process involved with setting up her foundation. Instead, she was approached by FIFA’s Chief Football Officer and former USWNT head coach Jill Ellis, joining 13 other elite women’s footballers from around the world to create their own social impact foundation.
‘Jill Ellis reached out to me, asking if I wanted to be a part of it, and obviously, I said yes,’ she continued. ‘It's a big opportunity, and Jill is a pioneer in women's football, so that was pretty cool. Then we spent two days in Paris, doing workshops, trying to figure out what we would like our social impact to be.
‘They provided a social impact coach, which was really helpful in getting my foundation off the ground in terms of the logistics and getting everything done. That was a crucial part of the process, and they were able to fund my programme as well. I'm really grateful for that.’
After finalising the vision for her KB3 foundation, the Rising Ballerz programme was born. Kadeisha explains why her project will take a holistic approach to supporting a dozen families in the initial cohort.
‘At the moment, it's around 12 girls per season,’ she says. ‘The goal is to impact their lives, as the foundation hopefully continues to grow. It can really impact a whole community. The goal is to reduce the drop-out rate, but also, the foundation is there to create a community with these girls. It's financially helping them out, but also educating them on mental health, sleep, and nutrition.
‘It not only helps the daughters, but also the mums. It’s educating them on what their child needs to eat because they're the ones doing the cooking.'
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach described sport as a “powerful platform” to empower women and girls when addressing the United Nations on gender equality, and research conducted by professional services organisation EY Global showed that 94% of women in C-suite executive roles have played sport at some point in their lives.
Buchanan is using her foundation to provide prospects for those who might not otherwise receive them, so that players can develop those qualities regardless of their ambitions. And if they are anything like Kadeisha, they’ll be dreaming big.
‘The goal is just to give them opportunities through sport, whatever they want to achieve,’ she continued. ‘That might be to become a professional player, or to go play college soccer, or to become a trainer, a coach, whatever it may be.
'A lot of these players will be able to speak with coaches and even different athletes, like track athletes or basketball athletes, to get their take on how they got through and how they got to where they are.
‘Each girl will receive funding and have the opportunity to be mentored. Everyone will have access to a nutritionist. Everyone will have access to training. Twice a year, I will come to Canada, and I'll put on a camp where I'll be training my girls. So they'll have access to me, and also they will be able to go watch Canadian women's soccer games.
‘I will be working to give them any shared experience I can. We have Toronto Tempo, who are a WNBA team. They'll have access to attend their games.
'Even while I'm playing, I’d love the programme to grow as fast as it possibly can. I want to get into coaching as well after football. So I think the foundation coincides with that pretty well. There are many things I would like to do after football.’