Female athletes to develop women’s sports in Kuwait
The Women’s Sports Committee of the Kuwait Olympic Committee organized a discussion titled “Together we can make a change” on Tuesday at the multipurpose hall in Al-Shaheed Park. Female athletes gathered to set an action plan to reform and develop women’s sports in Kuwait and discuss the obstacles hindering the development and growth of women athletes.
“This is our second meeting to discuss the difficulties that players face. Kuwait is still marginalizing female players, and 90 percent of the Kuwaiti society does not even know anything about these players. We have to bring women back into the picture because young girls deserve to have a Kuwaiti athletic role model,” said Fatima Hayat, Chairperson of the Women’s Sports Committee and Olympic Committee of Kuwait. She noted that the Women’s Sports Committee is trying now to put the right person in the right place by selecting professional women from each sport to lead. “We have heard a lot of promises, but we will never accept mere promises - we insist on turning them into action,” she said. Hayat said there have been suggestions to dissolve the Women’s Sports Committee because it contravenes local and international rules where the committee is considered sexist for mentioning ‘women’s sport’. “We also suggested letting women to be in the general assembly and have the right to vote,” she said.
She assured that there will be three upcoming initiatives “We are forming a women’s committee at the Kuwaiti Tennis and Squash Union. We have been communicating with specialized sports companies to design campaigns that will be announced shortly. We also negotiated with a German coach and made an agreement with to establish training centers for girls in all governorates along with four women referees and 20 Kuwaiti female coaches,” Hayat said.
Rabaa Al-Hajri, a member of the Women’s Sport Committee, pointed out that the committee is communicating with private companies to participate in the development of women’s sports. “Our goals are to rebuild and develop the organizational structure of women’s sport to international standards and in line with the reality of women’s sports in Kuwait. We are going to organize a national awareness campaign to promote women’s sports and create sports awareness in the community to encourage girls,” Hajri explained. She added that the committee is aiming to prepare for Olympic football in cooperation with the women’s football committee to participate in the 2024 Olympics.