Tanaz Mohammed
What are you fighting for? Why do you think it is so important?
Creating awareness and a platform for women to explore the opportunities that are available in sports for women. Most of the time, even now, women are not considered to be a part of a sporting culture. Sometimes, it is their surroundings that stop them, and sometimes, it is their own personal barriers.
I am trying my best to create awareness for women and young girls, that they can also make a career in sports.
Tell us about yourself. What's your background? How did you become involved in your cause? What inspired you to begin living for change?
My journey into sports began at a very early age. I started with athletics at the age of 7. When I was 8, I decided that I wanted to play hockey, and that decision proved to be one of the best for me. I played hockey at both the national and international levels. Hockey is the sport that changed the shy and timid girl that I was into a confident and motivated one. I played actively though my graduation days too.
I completed my Bachelor's in Commerce Degree (majoring in Management) in the year 2013, then my hunt for a perfect career began. I wanted to be in sports but I wasn't really sure and aware of what exactly I could do. It took me two years of my life to figure out that I wanted to learn Sports Management Studies, and that something like this existed in my country. I finally enrolled myself for post-graduate studies in Sports Management in 2015.
I made sure that I maintained the balance between my game and studies, as I had realized that this is where I wanted to be and go ahead in life with. I played the Senior Nationals Hockey Tournament that year. My hard work payed off well and I was announced as the Gold Medalist Student of the Year 2015-2016. My work life took me to a new sport - it was football for me now. I had played football but as a secondary sport. Little did I know, that the sport would now be the driving force of my hard work and achievements.
Once I got into football, I decided to keep upgrading myself to make an identity of my own. And in just four years into this beautiful game, I am now a Coach Educator, whereby I can train and update other coaches. I am also a Grassroots Development Officer, whereby I work towards providing better exposure to kids. Kids make me happy and so my vision is clear that I want to train kids and provide them with exposure and inspire them towards the game. Along with that, I also decided to motivate the youth, especially females, and let them know about the opportunities available in the game, and mainly to get rid of self-made barriers where they thought they couldn't do something just because they are females.
One of my major achievements was helping women and girls from a community get rid of their self-made barriers. I can happily and proudly say that I gave exposure to around 800 girls from the community who were stuck in those barriers. I made them - and their parents, realize that football can be played in any kind of clothing, even while wearing a hijab - all you need is your foot to play. Those girls are now into football!
The schools in that locality have started their own girls’ football teams and they participate in various tournaments. As a result of this, the mothers were also inspired and now they dedicate some time of their day for themselves, just to get out of the house and take a walk and practice the few exercises that I've taught them. I have trained and educated around 150 coaches, both males and females, into community coaching of football.
I also work with underprivileged kids where I focus on giving them an opportunity to explore the game of football and to try to lead a better life along with it. While starting my journey, I never thought that I would be able to inspire so many young people, also girls and women, to take up sports as their career, but now when I see them, it gives me more inspiration to keep working hard and to help a lot more of them in exploring the beauty of sports. The inspiration adds up when I see the males too looking forward at me, to learn and to work towards the development of sports.
What have you been doing to spread the word and/or to help your cause so far?
I have been trying my best over the past four years to interact with females from all age groups about the opportunities in sports. I conduct awareness programs, workshops, coach education clinics and festivals in order to create this opportunity for them. I also interact with females through webinars.
How and when will you judge success? What’s your end point?
I would judge my success when I see an equal number of girls and boys playing together in a sport and trying their equal best to grab an opportunity to it. The end point would be when someone gets an opportunity based on their talent and work and not on their gender.
Complete this sentence: "I am #LivingForChange because..."
I am #LivingForChange because that's when we can break barriers and start believing in ourselves and our potential. That's when we can grow as individuals and inspire others to grow too.
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