TW for violence against womenFATIMA SALEEM STILL HOPES TO USE SPORTS TO EMPOWER PAKISTANI GIRLS“Rais

TW for violence against womenFATIMA SALEEM STILL HOPES TO USE SPORTS TO EMPOWER PAKISTANI GIRLS“Raised with three brothers and a father who were dedicated fans in her cricket-loving country, Saleem loved sports from an early age, watching cricket, soccer and field hockey for hours with her family. She also swam competitively in her youth.She rolled that love of the game into a career, becoming a sports anchor for national network Geo News, where she became one of the few female sports journalists in the region.After college, she interviewed for a job as a sports anchor and reporter at Geo English. She told her interviewers that her dream was to cover sports. “They said, ‘Great. Here’s a mike. You start tomorrow!’” she recalls.She had a little apprehension about getting into sports journalism as a woman in Pakistan: “A woman with a mike and a camera talking about sports? People didn’t accept it at first. They didn’t take me seriously. I got a lot of hate mail on social media, especially being a woman wearing my blazers and Western clothes talking about sports.”Saleem launched Go Girl Pakistan in February 2014, with hopes of bringing sports clinics to girls across the country. The program has been suspended amid recent violence.Despite Saleem’s professional success, she couldn’t ignore a large segment of the Pakistani population she felt could benefit from a sport-forward attitude: women.“Women start working in the home from a very young age instead of hitting the playground,” Saleem says, so they have no idea what they are missing. Those who do play sports find themselves lacking support, venues where they can follow modesty dress codes, properly trained coaches, and other female teammates.All of that makes the struggle to get and stay in the game that much harder. Saleem says that’s what made her give up on swimming at the age of 11.But giving up never sat right with her. She felt a need to change that course for her countrywomen, giving them a deeper, more authentic involvement in sporting life. She believed that change needed to start at the family level, with mothers and fathers supporting the idea of daughters kicking, running, jumping and enjoying all facets of sports.Three weeks after the Peshawar attack, children – some still wearing bandages and wounds – returned to school. They were determined, Saleem says, to not let fear win. She calls this courage the Malala effect. After seeing 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai, a victim of an attack who went on to win the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, the children are inspired.“We have thousands of Malalas now,” Saleem says. “And all of them want to continue to learn and move forward.”Read the full piece here -- source link

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