From hardship to glory, she never gave up, that’s Simone Biles in a nutshell. You look at her now, and she makes Olympic gymnastics look like a walk in the park. But the truth is, her journey has been anything but easy. As a kid, she and her siblings went through so much. They spent years in foster care after being taken from their biological mom, who was struggling with substance use. Can you imagine the uncertainty of being that young and not knowing what comes next? And it wasn’t just the emotional stuff. There was a lot of hunger, too.

One memory that stuck with Biles was watching a street cat get fed while she and her siblings were going hungry. She laughed about it later, saying, “They would feed this cat, and I’d be like, ‘Where the heck is my food?’” But she didn’t give up even through all of that. Finally, she and her sister were adopted by their parents, Nellie and Ronald Biles and things began to look up for them. From there, Simone went on to become the most decorated gymnast in the world with 11 Olympic medals. For those who want to unburden themselves like children living in the slums of Uganda and dreaming of having a better life – Biles is their hope!

Simone Biles is helping Ugandan kids to dream big

Separation from her mother, foster care, but hope still remained, and that brought Biles to life through gymnastics! This story has touched the lives of people in different parts of the world including Uganda which is way far from Texas, 8,500 miles away. Among those is the seventeen-year-old- Eric Mayanja who is a gymnast from one of the largest slums in Kampala, Uganda. “I wish to be like Simone Biles,” says Eric with all the optimism. Despite many challenges that he has to face, including a lack of necessary equipment and a place to train, gymnastics is an uncontainable passion of Eric.

Eric is associated with the Kataka Arts Gymnastics, a local Club that offers gymnastic training to over sixty children from the streets and the surrounding. Most of these children, including Eric, have grown up in exceedingly poor families and very poor conditions. However, gymnastics has remained the hope for them. “Gymnastics has been my dream since childhood,” Eric says, he has always had the desire to learn gymnastics. Coach Lugolobi Faizo, a self-taught gymnastics coach, drops ideas into his young students as motivators for their success with no less faith in their capabilities.

But it is not the flips and the twists that these kids love, it is the hope that is gymnastic. They love gymnastics but for some of them, when they finish the training, they are facing many challenges – like they don’t have anything to eat,” says Johnson Kato, another coach at Kataka. However, for these kids, the chance to train or to dream is enough to bring their spirit out.

To them, gymnastics equals an opportunity that allows them to change their lives and have a future they never dreamt of. Like Simone who wished to compete as a gymnast in the Olympics, these young kids also wanted to perform for the world, no matter how big the dream.  “We hope that Kataka can be the first to take a local gymnast to a top competition,” says Faizo. But near this hope is a giant impact of Biles. Not only has she motivated them in terms of athletic ability but through her voice for mental health issues, she paved the way for other Olympic athletes to do the same.

Biles shows that strength isn’t just physical but it’s mental too

Simone Biles raised the bar when she withdrew from some of the events at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to mental health issues. It was a risk, specifically, in a culture where athletes are expected to play through everything. However, the same could not be said about Biles who argued that it’s equally important to take care of your mental health. But no matter how much she received backlash for it, even was called a “quitter” but it didn’t affect her! In her own documentary titled Simone Biles Rising, she said, “I didn’t want to be afraid of the sport anymore.”

It was great that Simone Biles started the conversation mainly devoted to mental health issues in sports. She showed that one didn’t have to perform at the extreme to be strong and taking care of one’s self is a sign of strength too. Then other athletes including Naomi Osaka, Adam Peaty, Caeleb Dressel, and Tom Daley came out to speak about their struggles with mental health. And hence, it became a global conversation! Biles’ story isn’t actually about gymnastics, it’s about being present for your own self, and that’s precisely why Biles is such an inspirational figure.