How boxing became a refuge
When Ngamba moved to the UK aged 11 from Central Africa, she struggled to adapt. Everything felt very different compared to Cameroon, causing her to withdraw into herself after also being bullied for her weight and her accent.
These incidents made her quiet and reserved, and boxing became her refuge.
Ngamba threw her first punches at a local boxing club in Bolton, before being invited to train with the GB Olympic programme in Sheffield.
“GB boxing has taken me in with open arms and they’ve pushed to try their best to support me,” Ngamba, who was one of the flagbearers for the Refugee Team at the Paris 2024 Olympics, told Olympics.com last year.
“Even though I couldn’t represent Great Britain at the 2024 Paris Olympics, they saw talent in me, and the skills that I had, and they didn’t want my potential to be wasted.”
Like many refugees around the world, the middleweight boxer pushed through with resilience and courage.
The most difficult moment for Ngamba, who has not been able to go back to her home country due to her sexuality, was when she was 20. She came close to being deported after attending what she believed was a routine check-in with authorities to confirm her presence in the UK.
Instead, she was arrested and detained for a day alongside her brother, Kennet, and transferred from Manchester to a detention centre for reasons she still has not fully been given.
“There are two things I think about when I look at my life. Firstly, I felt like at any moment immigration was going to send me back to a country that I left when I was little…One time I was sent to a female detention camp where I met other women who had been there for many, many years, and some of them were going to be sent back to their country. I felt helpless,” she told us in a previous interview.
“So when I feel pressure in boxing, I remember that nothing compares to the pressure I felt at that detention camp, at a time when I was going through so much hardship. So ultimately I just get that energy and that striving, and I believe in myself that I’m going to empty the tank in every single fight because I’ve already come through harder times.”