The Ugandan cradle of boxing champions
The Zebra Boxing Club in Bwaise, a slum neighbourhood in Uganda's capital Kampala, is the training base for dozens of aspiring and seasoned boxers who hope to compete for the national team.
Boxing
As the heat of the morning sun warms the bustling slum in the Ugandan capital, a group of boxers’ shadow punch in an intersection of pathways.
One of the country’s icons of the sport looks down admiringly at the pack immersed in their training. Isaac Zebra Ssenyange senior, known as 'Mando', wanted to help teenagers avoid crime by offering boxing as an alternative in Bwaise, a big slum area in Kampala.
The dusty open space teeming with young and seasoned boxers offers a glimpse into Mando Ssenyange’s vision of a boxing academy.
Ssenyange Sr is long gone. But his huge mural painting and legacy are still very visible, four years after he passed away.
His son, Isaac Zebra Ssenyange Junior is among the group who have slipped out of the house in the early hours of the morning to box. He jumps on a rope, while some of the teenagers training close by gaze admiringly.
As a child, he grew up watching his dad boxing.
“Boxing chose me…,” Ssenyange Jr. a national team boxer tells Olympics.com.
“Growing up in a boxing family. My mum is into boxing, my dad was into boxing, my uncle, everyone who I knew around me. Even the kids I played with instead of kicking a ball, we were shadow-boxing. It grew on me.”
Ssenyange Jr is one of the promising talents honing his craft at the Zebra Boxing Club, which continues to churn some of the country’s greatest boxers.
Zebra Mando Ssenyange: The boxing legend who forged a pathway for Ugandan fighters
For the Ssenyange family, boxing was a respite from their daily lives in one of the poorest and most densely populated slums in the East African nation’s capital.
Making Uganda’s national team, christened the Bombers, for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, served as a springboard for the Zebra Boxing Club.
Already united in their tales of struggle, Mando Ssenyange decided to form a place where the local youth could find orthodox ways to fight for survival.
“We have been training here for the last 15 years,” explained Twaib Mayanja, a former national team member and an older brother to the late Mando Ssenyange
“When Zebra came back from the UK, we bought this land together, and he had a vision of making a gym, and an academy before his death.”
Mando was shot dead at 39. In his brief life, the late boxer made a significant contribution to his hometown in Uganda.
“We kept this going, because we had a vision. Through this sport you can get something, some money…have some achievements.”
“It would be tough without boxing,” Ssenyange Jr. a sports Management graduate added. He, too, decided early on a career in the ring.
“Where we are right now is a slum or a ghetto as we call it. So, most of the youth get distracted with drugs and all the criminal activities surrounding us. He [dad] decided that boxing would help instil some discipline in them, occupy them, and give them a vision and direction in becoming national and international athletes.”
Dreams of ring glory from the ‘ghetto’
The only sign that guides you to the makeshift boxing club are two old punching bags dangling loosely on a metal stand next to a pit latrine, and a flurry of mainly worn-out boxing gloves, hands wraps, and a few jumping ropes.
There’s no ring or speedbags for the aspiring boxers who unleash top class punches that swing beyond their immediate challenges, as they shuffle their feet and dodge their fears in pursuit of boxing glory.
Ssenyange Jr. made his debut at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham two years ago, some 20 years after his dad boxed in a similar event and in the same middle weight class, 71kg.
“I see some people I used to study, they’ve really lost purpose,” he continued.
“I love boxing, a talent I picked from my dad,” 14-year-old Shaffic Kizito chimed happily.
“I came here to become a champion and be known among people. There are so many boxers I admired in the national team, like Isaac that train here. So I also want to be a boxing champion and get good things in life like them.”
The teenager is among the most consistent, but he is not the smallest. The club offers training to several local children, the youngest of which is seven.
“We try to lend a hand to some of them, bring them under the boxing wing. With poverty, we have tackled with education with the schools around us, ensuring some of the boxers get education scholarships. We also provide jobs for them in furniture and mechanical workshops, instead of going around snatching and stealing stuff,” explained Ssenyange Jr.
Isaac Zebra Ssenyange Jr: Following in his father’s footsteps
Ssenyange Jr. learned the impact of representing Uganda from watching his father, who captained the national team to several championships. It remains a huge motivation for him in his boxing career.
He was among the Paris 2024 Olympic hopefuls in Dakar, in his first attempt to qualify for the Games, where he travelled with his mother, who coached the women's team.
Boxing remains Uganda’s key Olympic sport, as it was the first event that earned the country medals at Mexico City 1968.
“The Olympics remains a key goal of mine,” he said, of what he hopes will be the next step on his career ladder. In the meantime, his learning process continues.
“I have dedicated my life to boxing, like my dad …and my mum. Even when I was studying, I opted to go for sports management and science, so I can understand all the theologies and things that come with sport all together. So, I also help with the administration of the club, drafting training plans…”
Ssenyange Jr., who says he possibly threw his first jab when he was a toddler, has gained a sense of purpose and identity through boxing. While he works on refining his skills and becoming a more complete fighter, he remains grounded in his roots in Bwaise.
“Every time I enter the ring when I am in Asia, in Europe ... Every time I am in the dressing room. I look at where I am and where I have come from - right here, you can see we don’t even have a cemented place... It's all soil, it’s in the open space, just a compound. This humble environment is what pushes me, motivates me to do everything I can to win and to act as an example to the young ones,” said Ssenyange Jr, as he falls back into shadow-boxing workout.
He moves confidently while performing a variety of boxing combinations, under the watchful eye of his family’s patriarch.